Almost Infamous

Promotional Stand-Up Comedy Video

2009-06-11T10:21:00.003+08:00

Gary's a friend of mine who's now practising to be a stand-up comic. Kudos to him. Here's the promotional video - some of his stuff ain't bad.

那就這樣吧

2009-06-02T11:41:00.003+08:00

The mark of true responsibility isn't what you can do when you have absolute control over everything in your life - it's what you do when you don't have any control.

It is drying the tears of your loved one when she tells you she loves someone else. It is the kindness in letting go. It is the dignity of doing what needs to be done. It is the million tiny acts to acknowledge that your love isn't at an end, even if your time together is.

It's moving on and staying still at the same time.

Footwork

2009-05-18T18:46:00.000+08:00

Sunday saw us evaluating a number of juniors. In particular, Chris had his work cut out for him. I couldn't quite believe it myself - he was put through the paces of an evaluation that would possibly have tested a Scholar, and he acquited himself reasonably well. Well done.

I'm also quite astounded that Greg is relying more and more on the seniors to evaluate and teach. I suppose that is a natural evolution of things but it's heartening to see that there are -enough- seniors in attendance to teach things (and teach them somewhat correctly I might add).

There is one thing I do want to say to the juniors in the class though.

If I could go back and do everything again, I wouldn't go back to practice my guards, cutting and positioning. I would go back and re-master my footwork.

Abrazare may be the foundation of swordsmanship, but footwork is the foundation of everything. Footwork is responsible for stability, measure, timing and power generation - just about everything important for swordsmanship.

Too often these days, I notice an acressare that comes just a little bit late robbing a cover of its stability and power, or a stance that's insufficiently deep, robbing an intial attack of inches, or a turn not executed from the hips.

Work on the feet. The feet are important. Everything starts from the contact with the ground.

Josie and the DBS Credit Card Boycott

2009-05-07T11:18:00.003+08:00

I've been chewing over the morality of the DBS Card Boycott for a while.

I think this video will probably do a better job of summarising my thoughts than anything else.

The mistake that many (including myself) make is treating big organisations like DBS as individual organisms. I especially have that problem because I've had the seperate legal entity doctrine drilled into me since 3rd year of law school.

This is a fiction. The operational reality is that a company is defined by its people. Furthermore, the higher up you go, the greater the influence this person has on thoughts and philosophy of the company.

In many senses, an organisation (or subset of an organisation) takes on the identity of its leader. Think Bill Gates, and the Evil Microsoft Empire. On a more local note, think TSMP. I'm willing to wager that all of the senior management of the company have cell group and prayer meetings at lunch time, and those who don't never make it to senior management.

Let's add another thought into the equation - the role of large organisations in society, and what it really means when a consumer buys a product. It's fairly undeniable that large organisations exert a large footprint in society. In many ways, the consumer's choice of which large organisation to support reflects on which message they want to support too.

Let's take an example - when I support Gloria Jean coffee, I would be supporting the fact that Gloria Jean Coffee uses my dollars to support some dubious Christian practices. That's a clear cut example. A less clear cut example would be the support of Apple over IBM - for the longest time, the choice of using Mac's was intimately connected to the objection over Microsoft's OS dominance.

Putting these thoughts together, I think it's pretty legitimate for someone to boycott DBS Credit Cards based on Josie's actions. Rejecting the product would be a pretty good way of saying that (1) you don't condone DBS putting Josie in a leadership position where she can influence the "personality" of DBS marketing and (2) you don't condone Josie's individual actions, and want to stick it where it hurts - her job performance review.

Think of what I've written, and then think of that Argentinian Transexual applying for a bank loan in a department run by Josie. Think of the reaction that she would be getting, and think whether you want to condone such a message.

The Authoritarians - AWARE Edition

2009-05-05T22:54:00.002+08:00

To those who have been following the AWARE saga, please read this netbook by Professor Bob Altemeyer, called "The Authoritarians". It's pretty good describing some of the behaviour that went on during the AWARE EGM by the New Guard.

Pretty chilling, if you ask me.

My Humble Suggestions involving the AWARE EOGM and the presence of Rajah and Tann

2009-04-29T16:32:00.002+08:00

Rajah and Tann has apparently been engaged as the legal advisors for the AWARE EOGM on May 2 to ensure compliance with law and the constitution of AWARE.

I, of course, have my doubts about their role there. However, I'm willing to give Rajah and Tann the benefit of doubt at this point in time.

That being said, I would make a couple of very humble suggestions for those attending. Consider this my contribution to the cause.

Please note here that everything I say here should be verified and fact-checked - I'm no expert on the Societies Act, and I certainly haven't seen or read the Constitution of AWARE.

(1) The first thing attendees must clarify is this: Who is Rajah and Tann's client? Specifically, is Rajah and Tann's client AWARE, or the new Ex-Co, or members of the Ex-Co in their personal capacity?

The distinction here is absolutely important. If Rajah and Tann's client is AWARE, then they are bound to act in the best interests of the Society as a whole - which means that they can neither favour the current Ex-Co nor the existing members. If they do so, then it would be advisable to remind them of their professional duty here.

Things would be somewhat different if they are the Ex-Co's clients. In such an event, please be aware that Rajah and Tann is not obligated to act in anyone's best interests except the Ex-Co.

(2) The second thing is - those who are attending, please study the constitution of AWARE. My concern right now is that there might be some procedural defect in the calling and voting of this EOGM. One that I am especially concerned about is that some societies reserve the power to choose not to accept certain members - which the Ex-Co can exercise quite legitimately to swing the votes in their favour. Others may become members but may not be eligible to vote in this EOGM because they joined too late.

In this regard, I would advise some kind of verification process to clarify who are the members eligible to vote - I would certainly press that this be answered by the Ex-Co at least, and Rajah and Tann themselves if they come out in the open and state that their clients are AWARE.

Another concern I have is the use of a possible procedural defect to render the results of the vote void - the change of venue itself is a bad sign. I don't know what kind of notice provisions the Constitution of AWARE has, but it does seem awfully last minute. My advice here is to clarify and question whether this will eventually render the results of the meeting void, and if so, why was this action taken in the first place.

(3) Given that the crowd may be huge that day, my suspicion is that not everyone will be able to enter the hall. Fire codes, etc may be cited to limit the crowd. In that regard, I would encourage everyone to be patient. Furthermore, I would encourage the attendees to clarify what kind of criteria they would use to allow people into the meeting - first come, first served may be helpful, but again, it may be biased against people who wish to vote against the Ex-Co, given that there is a convention next door.

My suggestion here is to be patient and ask questions about the process and procedure for admittance into the hall. Oh, and make sure to arrive on time.

I would also encourage that AWARE be prepared to find a way for all attendees and voting members to listen to the discussions, even if the capacity is reached. If this is not done, I fear a spontaneous mob may form and more accusations of bad faith be slung about.

Good luck. I will not be present and I will be unable to vote even if I was present. As such, I wish AWARE all the best.

To my lawyer friends and classmates who are more, uh, aware of the issue than I am, please feel free to correct what I have written or dismiss these thoughts outright.

Update 1 If what I have access to is in fact the latest copy of the AWARE constitution, then please be aware that there does not seem to be an express provision for the removal of AWARE Ex-Co members duly elected. This may be a possible tripping point.

My suggestion - don't let this discourage you. A 2/3 majority overturns the rules of the Constitution, subject to the Registrar of Societies' consent. Get the votes, and worry about the acts later. I suspect this will end up in a nasty lawsuit regardless.

Update 2 The newspaper reports I've been reading seem to indicate that Rajah and Tann is acting as counsel for the EX-CO. I suggest a couple of courses of action IF R&T are in fact representing the Ex-Co (i) check whether the bill paid to Rajah and Tann is paid from AWARE funds (ii) if they are, check whether it is within the constitutional limit of $20,000 per month and (iii) question whether there is an issue in having the funds paid out from AWARE's coffers but only benefitting the Ex-Co.

Facts which I know about Star Trek and its casts

2009-04-27T10:10:00.005+08:00

PLAGERISM ALERT!: My contest entry has been copied in its entirety in THIS ENTRY. Please be on notice that I am, in fact, the original author of this blog entry. Proof? There's a spelling mistake in my disclaimer, which was duplicated.

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for the bad grammar mistake in the title. It's a requirement for participating in a competition to win STAR TREK TICKETS! I will gladly sully my grammer for STAR TREK TICKETS!

This is my somewhat shameless bid to win Star Trek premiere tickets.

Facts I know about Star Trek and its cast.

(1) Contrary to popular belief, Captain James T Kirk is not the first captain to appear in a TV series. The first captain was Captain Christopher Pike, played by Jeffery Hunter, then Sean Kenney. The studios switched to Captain James T Kirk because they felt that the series needed "more action". Mild Spoiler Warning: Ironically, in the new movie, the man that convinced a young Kirk to sign up with Starfleet is none other than Christopher Pike.

(2) The "T" in James T Kirk stands for "Tiberius".

(3) Mild Spoiler Warning: The latest Star Trek movie represents a soft "reboot" of the series, because it actually happens in another "timeline" from the original series. The villian of this series, played by Eric Bana, travels in time to take his revenge on a younger Kirk. That explains the reason why the trailer has Eric Bana saying "James T Kirk was a great man, but that was another life."

(4) Mild Spoiler Warning Cont'd: This also explains Leonard Nimoy's guest star appearance in this movie - he plays an older Spock from an alternate timeline.

(5) Speaking of Leonard Nimoy, he's written two autobiographies about his time as Spock, entitled respectively, "I am not Spock" and "I am Spock". Go figure.

(6) There are massive homages paid to Star Trek on the series "Heroes". For one, George Takei, who played Sulu in the original series, plays Hiro Nakamura's father in "Heroes". The homage was made even more obvious when George Takei is seen driving off in a car that bears the license plate "NCC-1701". "NCC-1701" is the starship designation of the original Enterprise.

(7) Of course, Zachary Quinto, who plays Sylar, is now the new movie's Spock.

(8) More facts about George Takei - he's homosexual, out of the closet, and one of the first few men to get his domestic partnership registered as an actual marriage in California before Proposition 8 kicked in. You would never have figured seeing this photo.

(9) Memory Alpha, the famous(?) wiki on all things Star Trek, is named after the planetoid containing the sum total of the knowledge and culture of all Federation members. I used this reference only once during the composition of this and that was to find out the episode Khan Noonien Singh first appeared.

(10) The original series of Star Trek featured the first interracial kiss shown on TV. The kiss was between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols, playing Kirk and Uhura respectively. It was a big deal back then.

BONUS!

(11) The plot of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" was actually the continuation of an episode from the Original Series "Space Seed". In that episode, Kirk convinces Khan Noonien Singh to settle on a marginally inhabited planet, not knowing that the planet eventually becomes unstable. Khan loses his wife to that planet, and blames Kirk for her death - which is the motivation for his actions in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan".

(12) Speaking of grammar mistakes, "To boldly go where no man has gone before" is a grammatical mistake when the Original Series was first telecast, because it splits an infinitive. It's now grammatical correct because the rules on split infinitives have been changed.

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I can probably get the list up to 50 or even 100 if I wanted to, but I think this would suffice. As can be seen I am a massive Star Trek geek (even though I missed "Voyager" and "Enterprise").

I want to watch this movie bad. As a lover of Trek, I am excited about this reinterpretation of Kirk and Spock - showing them as younger, less skilled but no less idealistic and courageous members of Starfleet. It's like watching Daniel Craig as James Bond - the fact that they are vulnerable and young does not detract from their heroism. Rather, it showcases how much more heroic they are.

I've always loved how Star Trek reflected the mood of the times. This is a prime example. We no longer want our heroes invincible. We want them flawed. We want them emotionally vulnerable. We want them human.

Most of all, we want them being heroes, because they remind us even ordinary men can be heroes.

Remember guys! Catch Star Trek in cinemas on May 7!

Business Tips from Restaurant City

2009-04-24T11:04:00.003+08:00

Proof once again that I take my gaming WAY too seriously, here are some practical business tips I picked up from playing Restaurant City.

Restaurant City is a game produced by Playfish, and is currently one of the most popular games on Facebook. It's my new productivity sink. As I understand it, Cowboy Caleb is also on this game. I am currently using the Cowboy as my toilet washer.

The game is incredibly subtle in its complexity. The basic premise of the game is that you must run a restaurant, decide on menu, layout, etc. You earn money and experience based on the number of customers you serve (i.e fail to piss off).

The "hook" of this game, apart from tapping into the nesting instinct, is that there are many business and economic principles that are at play in this game. My observations are based on some of these.

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1. Think pipeline, not just production

One of the interesting game mechanics here is replicating, in some respects, the "supply chain" of the restaurant business. Essentially, you must cook, serve and clear the table ready for the next customer.

One of the early mistakes I made was to improve food production without improving my serving and clearing capability. I did this by upgrading the quality of my stoves, thinking this would clear a bottleneck of cooking (which was, at the time, what I perceived as a weakness of my sales model).

Instead of making things better, I made things worse. My poor waitress couldn't keep up with the production of food. Instead of clearing tables, she shifted her time into shuttling between the kitchen and the tables serving food.

What made matters worse is that I created a situation where 2 upgraded stoves could not duplicate the capability of 3 normal stoves (i.e I couldn't just reallocate a cook to a waiter) and still keep production up at a capacity that I wanted.

My solution in the end is to tough it out until I can afford another staff but I'll be clear about this - it -has- hurt my business and I see a couple of friend-competitors overtake me in this time period.

2. Lessons of scarcity - What's your comparitive advantage?

The game starts you off with one starter, one main and one dessert. In that sense, everyone starts off "trained" in the same menu choice.

What's interesting about my subset of friends is that they, in large part, have all opted to be "trained" in the same menu choices. I don't blame them. In that sense, since you started with something "free", if you focus on that option, you are essentially getting one "upgrade" for free.

However, the interesting thing is that due to this, everyone in my subset is hunting for more or less the same ingredients. You need those ingredients to improve your menu choice. However, if everyone hunts for the same ingredients, those ingredients become much harder to obtain.

One thing I did right in this game by accident - I deliberately chose a menu choice that few other people in my subset of friends duplicated. In that sense, I have a nice distributed menu choice where I do not have to stress about where to get surplus ingredients.

3. Make your customers work - Get within their decision loop

One of the keys to success, I found, in Restaurant City is the ability to get within your customers' decision loop. Essentially, a customer is simulated into making a decision based on whether you have a table open and cleaned, whether you can produce food fast enough to fulfil their needs, whether you have a clean toilet available, etc.

One of the keys I've found to serving large numbers of customers fast is to create a "tiered" priority system. In other words, I place some seats much further away and make it more difficult to get to them. I place other seats right next to the door. In the time that it takes for a customer to get to the back seats, I'd have had a slight time advantage in fulfilling the orders of the customers, while staggering the impact on my own time.

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These are just some observations that I've found generally applicable to business. I'm sure you guys have more. Let's share them!

Of Faith and Gaming

2009-04-17T20:50:00.003+08:00

I'm writing this post for two reasons (i) I received an invitation to go visit a church I haven't been back to in 15 years from a friend who doesn't know my history with that church and (ii) another friend is writing his master's thesis on RPG's, the pen and paper kind.

How are these two events even related?

Read on.

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I started playing Dungeons and Dragons at 7. I played it out of the back of a school bus, and the DM was a friend's brother. My first ever game was as a Magic-User, out of the Dungeons and Dragons Red Box Set. In many ways, Dungeons and Dragons was my first real hobby. Everything that came after, the avid reading, the comics, the drama, the computer gaming, the swordfighting, it all sprang from my love for pen-and-paper RPG's. Arguably, I owe a lot of my thoroughness and skill in law to my love for debating rules in Dungeons and Dragons.

From there, my first gaming group from Primary 2 to 6 was lead mostly by my then-best friend. He introduced me to the wider world of Pen-and-Paper Role Playing Games. My second game, and the one that is still my favourite, is Marvel Super Heroes, then TMNT, then Ninja and Superspies. I remember skipping lunches and saving up pocket money and gorging myself on dinner when I got home to afford the books. I still have them somewhere.

I gave myself gastric by the time I was 12.

I remembered that my gaming group spanned almost half my entire class, and after school we'd run monster marathon sessions where one group would take on another group. It was pretty magical.

Then I went to secondary school.

You see, my P6 class was incredibly bright. A full half of them went into GEP. Many of them went to RI. The other half went to ACS, and we got split up into many different classes. In a year, from 12 to 13, all the people I knew and loved and were cool with suddenly turned into a class of hostile people, most of whom I barely knew, many of whom tormented me endlessly. I got shot at with paper pellets when I got off the school bus every day. That's how bad it got.

I remembered that I met a pretty inspirational teacher back then. He seemed to be the only person that would give a damn, and under his influence I started going to church, and converted.

I don't know if anyone remembers but during the late 80's and early 90's, there was a satanist scare involving Dungeons and Dragons. I must have been Christian for about a year or two back then. I remember the event that finally stopped me going was when the teacher tried to "counsel" me into stopping the "black magic practice" of Dungeons and Dragons.

On a related note, I also remembered how, suddenly, having parents that were Buddhist and being unbaptised were also looked on unfavourably, just because I played Dungeons and Dragons.

It was the first of many tests of faith I got, and also the event that built a lifelong distrust of Christians who were took quick to condemn others.

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I was fortunate that I managed to find friends that gave me hope during this very dark period of my life. These people literally watched me grow up from a gawky teenager to a gawky almost-adult. They introduced me to books and writers that I've never heard of, but swear by these days. They also gave me my first real writing gig. Four letters made a world of difference.

This group, and the offshot gaming group that came with it, formed the foundation of my gaming experience for a good 7 years, from 14 to 21. The game ended, as it must, when several members started getting married and having kids.

Along the way I met some people at Thomson CC. I was there first and foremost to interview the then-president, but we ended up being pretty good friends. The Thomson CC crowd formed the nucleus of my next gaming group, and some of its members are now my godbrothers through my mom. One in particular, though, is responsible for some of the worst heartache I've ever felt.

This group still games with me now, at a place that they have gamed at for the past 10 years or so. The group, like the members, have grown propsperous, experimented with different styles and genres and have generally seen the whole gamut of gaming, and reverted back to its core - good characters, good storytelling.

Except that I'm now at the helm. I don't game much nowadays - by choice, I'm now the storyteller.

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Why do I still game? I think the answer should be obvious but here it is.

Without it, I would never have found friends that I care so much about.

Without it, I would never have questioned my faith at so young an age. Without those questions, I would never have known what it was like to be an underdog, or to have to find and refind faith, over and over again.

Without it, I would never have been half the man I am now.

Without it, I would not be me.

Because...

2009-04-16T16:21:00.002+08:00

Because I've been fooled too many times already, and I won't be fooled again.

Because there's no deception worse than self-deception.

Because I won't unconditionally accept someone who takes but does not give.

Because one does not assess merit by all the wrongs I've committed over all the right things you've done.

Because the number things you've done right by me has been painfully small that even THAT comparison is only marginally in your favour.

Because a man that you've taken shameless advantage of for 12 years no longer exists and is finally willing to stand up to you and cut you out of my life.

Because you are a bully, and I hate bullies.

Because you are a coward, and I hate cowards.

Because when push came to shove, you neither pushed nor shoved. You ran away.

Because I've lost friends because of you. Not one. Not two. Multiple.

Because, in spite of everything, I've given you chances that you never even recognised as chances.

Because you never said sorry, and meant it. Or even remembered that you said sorry.

Because you are a parasite of the worst kind.

Go run back to the people that you can deceive into thinking that you are a decent human being. You don't fool me. Never again.

Appendicitis and Accidents

2009-04-13T15:47:00.002+08:00

Thanks to all who have been asking about my mom. She is fine now, if a little cantankerous.

I'm still not quite sure how it happened, except that at about 2 pm last Wednesday, I received a call from my dad on my mom's phone telling me she's being warded for appendicitis. That's the start of a supposedly-relaxing-but-actually-hectic weekend.

Apart from a scare with her blood pressure dropping like a rock on the first night (to which my brother quipped that my presence probably saved her life by raising her blood pressure), she is well and without complications. The doctor told her that they lasered off the appendix just in time.

She is now resting at home. I've moved back to live with her for a week. She and I exchange evil glares in the occassional battle of wills whenever I catch her doing something she isn't supposed to be doing. Lifting heavy things, puttering around needlessly, sneaking prohibited snacks away - the list is pretty endless. My dad and brother have declared themselves above it all.

Fun and games for the next week.

*************

I spent some time over the weekend on the Causeway. My SO and I were travelling up for the weekend to get some stuff done, and we got into a minor, bumper scratching accident.

Which should have been resolved easily, except that (i) I was in a murderous mood by that time because of the long jam on the causeway and (ii) I really disliked the attitude of the guy when he got out of the car.

I have a thing against elderly men trying to take advantage of shock and awe to get a private settlement in their favour. I consider these guys bullies of the highest caliber. I can spot that kind of driver a mile away.

There are many ways to resolve the incident - some good, some not so good. My personal approach is that no matter how minor the accident, the first thing I will do is to check if anyone is injured or in shock. Honestly, there is no telling how minor or serious a fender-bender is until you check for injuries, and I never take this shit for granted. Then and only then do I check the damage to the car.

This particular elderly man didn't. He opened in the most politely aggressive way possible short of actual yelling - he asked immediately to see the license and registration of my SO, but without offering his own. This is a very subtle and firm indication that (i) he wants to be in charge of the process and (ii) that you are the one at fault, thank you very much.

All this got my blood boiling, so I got out of the car and started my discussions with him by pointing out to him that it wasn't clear cut that my SO was at fault.

Thing degenerated pretty rapidly from there. My offer to let our insurance companies settle this was refused, on the grounds that my SO was driving a Malaysian car - another indication to me that this guy just wants a quick settlement in his favour that I wasn't willing to give at that stage, seeing that (i) he was asking for quite a bit of money for small damage and (ii) I'm pretty sure that this guy was at fault even though the insurance company would probably disagree with me.

Seeing as he was unwilling to let the insurance settle this, we started the blame game, and ended with him threatening to scratch my SO's car here and now - just as an ICA officer was walking towards us, and well within earshot of him.

Things went south quickly once I asked him very loudly and clearly if he was threatening me in front of a uniformed officer. The ICA got involved and referred the matter to the Police. The Police got involved and tried to defuse the situation - which wasn't happening because Elderly Man was insistent that he did nothing wrong and said I was accusing him of something that he didn't do.

Except he did. Except that what he told the officers and what he told me were different things. Except that I had a very low tolerance to people who will twist what happened to their advantage and appear the victim. So I repeated what he said again. Loudly. In front of the police officer, who was valiently trying to calm both of us down.

My SO stepped in and defused the situation, by telling me to shut up. By this point, I was damn sick of hearing this guy go on and on about what a gentlemen he is and how all he really wanted was an apology (which was absolute bulocks - he never mentioned an apology until much later). I went down to the ICA station and got down the name of the officer who might act as a possible witness.

After I got back, I found out that my SO had settled the matter amicably, with neither side admitting fault or paying the other. We exchanged numbers, and I listened to a whole load of shite from Elderly Man about being gracious and not telling police officers that I had been threatened. I wisely shut up this time, and just let it go, given the matter was already settled.

Elderly Man, if you're reading this, bullocks to you and your fake integrity. If you had any at all, you would not have acted the way you did. If you want to try anything funny, I want you to know that I still have no qualms about making a police case over what you said.

Let's see how much integrity you have when the police get involved in this.

More Madness

2009-04-08T21:22:00.003+08:00

My mom went down with appendicitis today. Been shuttling back and forth from Gleneagles. No complication thank god.

Just feeling a little drained - this week also happens to be the week I'm taking my wedding photos, and I've specifically arranged for this week to be restful.

Best laid plans....

Overclocked

2009-03-23T22:49:00.004+08:00

I just spent the last weekend in Muar, supposedly for a restful weeked. I ended up going there and rushing out some legal paperwork for my company. It wasn't pleasant to say the least. Apart from all the logistics issues that comes about when you go to a relatively less developed part of Malaysia,

The most traumatic part for me, though, was the use of a part of my brain that I try very hard not to use - the overclocked processor.

When I was still in legal practice, I was essentially thrown off the deep end and had to learn many complicated things by myself. To survive, I developed (or perhaps always had) the ability to accelerate my thought processes to a point where I can keep up with the deluge of information. Think of it as an adrenal stress "fight or flight" reaction, except it is completely focused on synthesizing and processing information (including, I might add, negotiation tactics).

The cost of this is that I literally shut down all other available functions. I don't eat, hardly sleep, pace around like a madman and do away with most social niceties like grooming and speaking like a human being. I also apparently give of this "fuck with me and you will die" aura.

The price of overclocking my processor this way is that it takes it toll on me. Physically, I end up in the state of physical exhaustion and starvation when it ends and I usually need a few days quiet rest after to get back to 100% again. Socially, it takes a while to repair the relationships damaged through my lack of social niceties.

The worst toll on me, though, is this spiritual chill I feel at the end of overclocking. It's not physical in any way. I just perceive the world as a cold and hostile place, like I'm suddenly and completely disconnected from everything. Nothing I eat tastes good. No gesture of kindness has an impact on me. Nothing.

I believe greatly in positive acts and positive karma. The problem with using this part of me is that it is fueled with anger, hate, and desperation of being caught in an untenable lonely situation. It infects my worldview and makes everything bleaker. Enough of this, and I revert back to negativity - something which I don't ever want to go back to.

And I have just taken another step back to it.

Rabbit Punch

2009-03-10T10:43:00.003+08:00

Thought I'd get round to explaining my Plurk.

A rabbit punch is a blow delivered to the base of the skull or neck, so named because that's how you kill a rabbit barehanded. It's considered an illegal move in boxing because it can cause death.

I did not get rabbit punched - the placement was about 6 inches off, because the blow landed on the base of my skull. It was a clean shot - which makes me feel somewhat better about it.

The reason I received many shots to the skull (3 in all) was because of a particularly intense bout of dagger drills. I've written a lot about fighting with a dagger, and I won't repeat it.

Something that I spotted in the article I've linked that I didn't pay attention to when I went into the dagger bout that Ilkka brought up - at dagger range, everything comes into play. Arms, hands, knees, feet. Getting the quick strike isn't everything, as I've learnt.

How it happened was when I launched a quick strike into my partner, and felt contact. I distinctly saw my blade sink into his collarbone and I though - okay that was it. Unfortunately, the bout continued, and my opponent launched a series of punches to my face. Two landed on my mask, one looped around and got me in the head.

******

Ultimately, the art is about the control of structure. An attack with a dagger is another means of doing the same thing - distrupting the structure of someone by planting steel into his internal organs. There are other ways of doing the same. Repeated blows to the head, for example.

I think I have the issue down, and it's the same issue I've been having all this while - I've been practising the material so long that I'm starting to take it for granted, and errors are creeping in. Sure, my initial responses are good, but after about 2 seconds I usually end up flailing around like a headless chicken.

Understanding the general principle is all well and good, but it's a methodology to work responses and nothing more. You -should- be able to work with what you. For example, in the instance when the guy is punching the living daylights out of me, the response should be the same as a normal dagger defense - first remedy cover to the center, plus a change in line, plus a return strike with the dagger.

This shit works. I just need to make it work for me.

ZOMG I HAS LUNCH WITH FEMES BLOGGER

2009-03-06T15:29:00.005+08:00

Okay, the title is a bit OTT. No I haven't been possessed. Still, in line with connecting and reconnecting with people, I did something I've always done - meet the Cowboy.

As a bonus, I met the even-cuter-in-person Fireangel as well, plus members of the Cowboy Bar whose exploits are legendary on the web. Hi MistressGrace, Nerak and TK!

So here it is. No pictures though.

**********

Even before the start of lunch, I was faced with an interesting problem - how in the seven hells do I recognise Cowboy, he without an online photo? Plus, he's probably never seen my photo either, so if he didn't recognise me, I would be in trouble.

Luckily, I recognised Fireangel, who looked damn surprised when she first saw me. I must have looked like some rabid stalker. In my own defense, it was because I was relieved to see her.

Anyways, with that bit of awkwardness behind us, we went for a "quick" lunch at Brotzeit.

**********

What can I say about lunch, except that it was the best stress relief I've had after a long week of back-to-back work? The banter was easy, funny and free-flowing. I can only imagine what they are like when they are drunk.

Bloody hell, my liver can imagine what they are like when they are drunk.

I was seated next to Nerak, who turned out to be a lark, a mother of two and in impossibly good shape. Fireangel and I could only stare in disgust when she claimed she was "normal" weight. I muttered under my breath about my own....er....full figure.

Of course, what German meal would be complete without sausages? And what sausage-based meal would be complete without innuendo, both about Germans and their sausages, with meaningful looks cast at Nerak and Fireangel?

MistressGrace joined the four of us a little later, and somehow the conversation turned towards blog traffic and Nuffnang earnings. My own pathetic earnings turned out to be even more than MistressGrace's, for which, in a burst of schadenfreude, I was eternally grateful.

TK joined us last. Again, the conversation took a bizarre turn towards artistics photography. TK suggested that I should pose in the nude with nothing but a steel gauntlet, and I was, for once, shocked into a loss for words.

Lunch tapered off eventually, with all of us needing to return to our day jobs. Still it was pretty awesome. Good bunch of chaps, one and all. Kudos.

Just Show Up

2009-02-28T09:19:00.002+08:00

Just as I was trying to find the source of my recent energy drain, along comes Tym with a wonderful video that reaffirms an epiphany I had while I was in California and trying to put into practice.

Lately, I've been feeling de-energized and unmotivated. I had initially thought that my energy drain was due to having to help friends deal with difficult issues in life, but I realise now it's deeper than that - it's creativity fatigue.

To those who do not believe that counselling friends with wisdom and restraint is a creative process, I challenge you to do so. It's just as much effort to frame your ideas, experiences and wisdom in a way that will be understood clearly as it is to teach a class, write poetry or perform on stage.

Elizabeth Gilbert is an amazing speaker, but more importantly, she frames the issue in an interesting manner. Since I've gone through my life-changing experiences, I've been an advocate of taking responsibility only for yourself, and to leave the rest to...well...the rest. I've written about human love and stubborness in the past, as an ingredient for living life after a great tragedy. However, the pieces fall into place so well in this speech that I feel almost...breathless.

Externalize your creativity. Just show up and do your job - let the rest take care of itself.

************

One of the issues I've been having with swordsmanship isn't lack of practice - it's lack of intent and understanding. The practice we have are merely gates (pardon the small pun here guys!).

Lately I've been unable to synthesize what the practices into something useful. My wheels are spinning but I'm going nowhere. After watching Ms Gilbert's speech, I think I understand what's going on. Sometimes, the process of learning (itself a creative process) involves spinning wheels because synthesis of learning is just as capricious a creature as creativity.

That doesn't mean that I should not make the effort to learn. It just means I don't beat myself up everytime I don't quite learn something as well as I should.

Just show up. Let the rest take care of itself.

Deterioration

2009-02-27T13:49:00.002+08:00

Sunday's training pretty much reflects how ragged my form has become.

I don't think my form is horrible. I managed to execute First Drill properly (despite some initial hiccups with the second step). I managed to get through the variations fairly well. I even survived the (comparatively brisk) warm up on Sunday, along with a fair execution of Syllabus Form.

The problem here is the lack of "stressed" training.

It showed a lot during the mock tournament we held. Kenneth and Yu Sarn have been able to truly integrate their training into a useable martial art. I have not. They can execute sword forms while thinking tactically. I cannot. They can step off the line as a natural response. My feet feel glued to the floor.

The strange part is - all of these problems only appear when I am in a stressful situation - i.e freeplay.

I know what this means - it means I don't have enough reps under my belt to really integrate this into a proper martial art. I've been doing a lot of armchair martial arts - critiquing styles, forms but not really training.

***********

The other problem now (which is related) is that I'm at an incredibly low in energy. I think I know why it's so low, and I know from experience that it tends to be self-correcting after a while. I just need to refill my energy reserves that I've spent on creative endeavours of late - i.e helping friends through their love problems, writing out scenarios for the games that I run etc.

Perhaps what I really need to do is to get some way of getting healthy without my reliance on swordsmanship as a head fake. I think I've relied on that for too long, and I really should move on based on that foundational activity.

More later. Head is hurting again.

Why You Should Wear Gloves When Practising Swordsmanship

2009-02-19T10:22:00.003+08:00

AKA, "The Doofus that Got Himself Cut"

How it Happened:

We were practising crossing of swords from Dente di Chingale. (Translation: It's a parry from a low guard held to the left of the body against a blow coming in from the attackers high right, cutting down towards the lower left.)

Some mistiming was probably going on. My best guess was that the cover either came up too late against an improperly formed attack (and I was the attacker) or I was leading with my hands.

Long story short - the blow grazed my fourth knuckle, deflected off my fifth and gouged a chunk of skin off the edge of my hand.

Lesson learnt, wear gloves, do your best to cover your hands on the attack, and don't stand so close.

The Malaysian Conumdrum

2009-02-18T10:12:00.003+08:00

I've been following the discussion thread here at Mr Wang's. It's a discussion about why a Singapore PR/Malaysian citizen would not want to take up Singapore citizenship in order to enjoy the privileges here, and is instead asking for the Singapore Government to instead extend privileges to PR's.

Let me start with a couple of points - I don't think it's possible to generalise on whether a PR is here just to reap the economic benefits or whether they are here to stay. A lot depends on factors such as whether they own property back in Malaysia, and how badly they are being treated in Malaysia.

I just thought I'd share some of my experiences and hearsay that I've experienced. Hopefully it will give a new perspective on the situation.

**************

Some Malaysian PR's are here because they want to earn in SGD and spend in Ringgit. I don't think this is in itself bad. If Singaporeans themselves are complaining what a low wage they are earning, I certainly cannot blame Malaysians for wanting to optimise their earnings. If they are depressing the local wage by being present here, it must be that they aren't earning all that much either.

I've heard some stories from Malaysian colleagues that Singapore employers automatically propose lower salaries on seeing that they are from Malaysia. In some senses this is a double edged sword - yes they do have a competitive advantage in wages, but the wages they make are lower overall as compared to a Singaporean in a comparable job scope and industry.

***************

Some Malaysian PR's are here (or in other countries for that matter) because they are being victimised in their own countries. I've heard over the last year that the 30% ownership of companies by Bumiputra's have caused the Chinese business community to go into an uproar, to the extent of asking their children overseas to stay overseas, and slowly initiating a transfer of property over. Singapore, UK, America, Canada all feature heavily in places to "run to".

Apparently the Keris-waving incident has caused some problems among the Chinese community in Malaysia as well. The extent of that, I'm not sure.

What I do get a sense of in Malaysia is that minorities (i.e not Malay) are very skittish of their own homeland. Given a choice they would certainly not want to run to another country. However, the writing's on the wall, and they are certainly getting less and less welcome as Malaysia becomes increasingly unstable.

***************

I wish to touch on the issue of owning property in Malaysia too. A couple of months back a friend developer asked me if I was interested in purchasing some property. I humoured him of course, but I had no intention of buying the property. What I found out surprised me. I, too, received the same advice - that I should put the ownership under a Malaysian's name where possible. I also noticed the difference in mortgage rates offered to Malaysians and Singaporeans. It was a 5% differential, which amounts to quite a bit of money.

I am also told that there are certain bank accounts and investments in Malaysia that pay preferential interest rates, but only to Malaysians. From what I've gathered the differential is a couple of percentage points higher than what bank accounts usually pay. I guess this must be Malaysia's version of pork barrel politics but I'm not entirely sure.

***************

The long and short of these anecdotes is that I don't think the situation is as clear cut as what most netizens make it out to be. Sure, a lot of the reasons I've cited are economic and political, but I think these form a network of interacting wants, needs and emotions that make it the decision not to take Singapore citizenship very hard to untangle.

What really fascinates me is the fact that this PR, Adrian Gopal, would appeal to the Singapore Government on a public forum to make his life as a PR easier. What I do not understand is this - essentially, each person's problem is individual. What Mr Gopal is asking for is essentially a sweetener to make the decision to stay in Singapore easier.

I can only draw two possible conclusions from this (1) that Mr Gopal thinks he has a reasonable chance of success in his appeal and (2) that Mr Gopal is desperate, so even if he thinks he has no reasonable chance of success, he has to try to make this appeal.

If the first is true, then it exposes once and for all how vulnerable and dependent Singapore is on skilled labour, and the inadequacies of our own labour force in providing for Singapore's needs (for whatever reasons). If Mr Gopal thinks he has a reasonable chance of success, it must be because foreign labour has collectively got sufficient bargaining power to make the Singapore Government listen.

If this is the case, then there must be a failure of Singapore Government policy somewhere. If the issue is wage competitiveness, then the issue must be that the Singapore Government's policies in either education, labour or NS (or all three) does not make up for the differential in value offered by Singaporean labourers, as opposed to foreign labour.

If the second option is true, then this speaks a lot about the invisible plight of foreign labour in Singapore, and it behooves us, if we are to become a nation, to understand their plight and not dismiss them offhand.

Either way, there's more of a story to be told I'm sure.

NS Part III - Responsibility

2009-02-13T10:19:00.002+08:00

Here's the last instalment of my thoughts on NS. The last instalment turned out to be harder to write than the previous two, mostly because I've been distracted thinking of other breaking news about the Job Credits Scheme (which I think is a good idea, but not for the reasons the ministers give) and various ministers putting their collective feet in their mouths.

Anyways, here it is.

************

The final aspect to consider about NS is the amount of personal benefit an NSMen derives from service. Here is where things get most complicated. The Powers that Be would like us to think that NS is an opportunity to grow up, a rite of passage etc. We who serve likely think the opposite, and that we pick up bad habits along the way, i.e cursing in colourful Hokkien, smoking, drinking cheap tiger beer, etc.

I think couching NS in terms of personal benefits is completely misconceived. NS is a circumstance of Singapore life, much like PSLE, applying for a HDB flat and CPF. It's very difficult to judge the effect of a set of circumstances on a person, because people react to circumstances differently.

Simply put, you and I can go through the exact same NS training and come out different people.

With this in mind, how is it that MINDEF can spout the same drivel about making our youngsters more mature year-in, year-out? Why is it our female counterparts can become mature in university without the need for NS? What about the generation of uncles that came before us? Are they any less mature for not having gone through NS?

This cannot be correct.

BUT

If what I have written above is true, then the flip side must also be true. Insofar as NS is a dangerous, shitty, time-wasting circumstance, it is still the individual's responsibility to ensure that they get some personal benefit from it.

It must be up to us to get gold from the shit, so to speak.

Of course NS has it's share of keng-sters who will dump their work on you because they can get away with it. Who's to say that you won't get this in future when you are working? Learn to deal with it, ESPECIALLY if it's a superior officer doing this to you.

Of course NS has it's share of mindnumbing admin to do. Who's to say that you won't get this in future when you are working? Learn to deal with it, ESPECIALLY because mind-numbing admin happens everywhere and your future expense claims, leave and performance reviews may be linked to these.

Of course NS has it's share of dangerous circumstances. Who's to say that you won't get this in future? Learn to deal with it, because if there's one thing NS taught it, it's that nothing in life can be taken for granted.

And there you go. Personal benefit, personal responsibility. It can't work any other way.

Huat Ah!

2009-01-29T16:23:00.000+08:00

Happy belated CNY to one and all!

Pardon my lack of updates. I've just spent a good part of CNY un-hooked from the Intrawebs, and am currently a bystander of some unnecessary drama.

I will get back to updating this blog fairly soon. As a teaser, my current bloggable topics include:

(1) Controlling the Centre Line (for martial arts, inspired by watching the movie "Ip Man")
(2) Personal Benefits for NS (or lack thereof)
(3) Unnecessary Drama

Stay tuned.

In Defense of Defense Part II - Everybody Dies

2009-01-23T10:06:00.002+08:00

I've been chewing through some of the comments that have been put on my blog from my entry. One of them fascinates me, so I will spend some time talking about it.

PanzerGrenadier wrote:

"The far greater price that we NSmen face is DEATH while serving the country."

He also wrote some stuff about the accidents happening in NS, and the risk of death in NS.

Let me start by saying, my utmost sympathies for those who have lost loved ones in the course of serving their NS. This post may offend you, so please don't read on.

**********

Death is inevitable. We all have to die some time, and the only question here is when, how and why. Those are the questions that we need to ask when trying to make MINDEF responsible for loss of life (or anything else for that matter).

I have some sympathy for MINDEF, not a whole lot, but some. The high-level problem that MINDEF faces is that it needs to impose regimentation and fairly rigourous training standards, while taking disproportionate amounts of liability for these standards.

In that sense, I can see why MINDEF would want to defend itself from liability in this way. It cannot be that MINDEF is legally culpable for every act within it's military premises. If a man keels over and dies while binging on cheap Tiger beer at the mess, it's going to be a stretch to argue that MINDEF is responsible.

On the other end of the spectrum, if someone gets squashed flat by a tank during exercise, why yes, MINDEF should be responsible.

What I'm trying to do here is to inject some sense into this issue - it cannot be that MINDEF is responsible for everything. Arguing along this line does not make sense, and in fact, demonstrates everything that I've argued in the previous post - that we are not in fact trying to get what is fair, but merely trying EVERY means to pin some fault, ANY fault on MINDEF. That makes us as bad as MINDEF is.

*************

What I -do- think will help NS safer is a Freedom of Information Act, and more frequent external audits. Take to point the issue of the NS man found mysteriously dead in a bunk. We don't know for sure the circumstances of his death. There isn't a way for finding this information out, so whatever MINDEF says will essentially become the "truth" for the purposes of liability.

Without a Freedom of Information Act, this kind of fact finding cannot be tested by external pressures. It enables the "cover-up" culture to continue, and weakens the credibility of everything MINDEF does.

I don't accept that everything MINDEF does is secret. Take the health of its NSMen for example. That information is fairly widely available in the public domain for the purposes of insurance, court cases etc. It cannot be that NS medical data is somehow special once it crosses the border of a military camp. In the event of a dispute, disclose that medical data.

The other method is to use external auditors to check accounts, training etc. I accept that this method has its limitations, in the sense that they can easily be undermined by whatever administrative roadblocks MINDEF chooses to throw up. However, the reverse side is true - the more admin roadblocks they throw up, the stupider they look when something eventually happens.

I'll get back to my writing about personal benefits (or lack thereof) of NS in a bit.

In Defense of Defense

2009-01-21T10:59:00.002+08:00

My experiences with NS and as a citizen soldier has lead me to question quite a bit about our national policy towards NS. Personally, I do not think it is NS per se that causes resentment among Singaporean males. It is a whole combination of factors.

The heart of the matter is that NS is a massive obligation with few benefits. When I say "benefit" I mean the whole gamut of benefit - financial, social, personal. I think enough has been discussed about financial benefit so I won't go there. What I will focus on is social and personal benefit.

My biggest gripe about NS is that it is viewed nationally not as a necessary sacrifice, but as a "haha-sucker" sort of obligation. Witness Taiwan - I am told merely wearing a uniform there raises your esteem in the eyes of the locals. A similar but more sombre zeitgeist pervades Israel, Finland and Switzerland. Why is this so?

The problem with Singapore is the issue of "us" and "them" isn't so clear cut. The "us" versus "them" mentality is encouraged, even inflammed, by government propaganda. The problem with encouraging this mentality is that this bleeds over to every aspect of life.

"Me" versus "the government", i.e what I can do to get out of NS in the first place?
"Me" versus "everyone else in NS", i.e can I get other people to do my job in NS?
"Me" versus "society" i.e Now that I have (on paper) served NS, what else can I get out of this obligation that ALL taxpayers have to bear?

Note that this mentality spreads even to non-NS serving citizens - i.e women. I've never met a Singaporean woman that gives respect to our men purely because they have to serve NS. It's always a mixture of relief and schadenfreude (that they don't have to serve), combined with just a little bit of "haha-sucker".

In short, what social benefit is there from serving NS? You don't get any respect out of it, you hardly get recognised for hard work, and if you do, in fact, put in hard work out of moral obligation, people laugh at you and call you a sucker.

***********

More on (lack of) personal benefits to NS in another instalment.

Off to Reservist

2009-01-04T22:30:00.000+08:00

See you all at the end of 2 weeks.

If

2008-12-31T10:31:00.002+08:00

It's funny how things work out.

If I had succeeded in getting into the Jessups or Shipping Moot team, I'd have become what I wanted to become at that time, a successful litigator. I'd have had a rigorous apprenticeship under a big-name lawyer, and picked up skills and networks that would have helped in my early career.

And at the end of that, I would have become as my friends have become - disillusioned, and wondering if this was all they could do for the rest of their lives, victims of their own success.

If I had gotten onto the moots team, I would not have entered into a (admittedly stupid) business venture.

If that business venture had succeeded despite all odds, I'd have quit law, and entered business. I'd have worked through a moderately successful business, right up to the point of the dot-com bust, and I'd have entered the work-force, having lost nothing but a few years, but with solid business experience under my belt.

Instead, I was outmanuevered, and was forced to make a decision between finding love and finding justice.

And because I was outmanuevered, I was much richer for the experience, because the first rule of business is not succeeding. It's knowing how not to fuck up, and I've since experienced almost every variation of second-hand fuck ups in every job I've been to. It's a valueable experience, knowing how and when things fuck up, because my job requires that I fix them.

If I had not entered that business venture, I would not have met my ex-wife. I'd have been spared the heartache of watching her tear asunder everything we've built. I'd not have been called boring, uncreative, and a typical Singaporean. I'd not have to face rejection from every angle, from someone I deeply trusted, to complete strangers who refused to give me the time of the day.

I would also have missed out the small opportunities that turned into big ones - the unpaid internship I procured in California, which turned into a job here in Singapore. I'd have lost the single greatest opportunity to prove what was best in a "typical Singaporean" - hard work and never-say-die.

I'd never have realised that success is not about huge successes, but of small accumulated wins, and not giving up.

I'd never have realised that life is transient, and all the more beautiful for it.

***************

Here I am now, a failure at everything I had wanted to be 10 years ago, and so much the better for it. I failed at becoming a Jessup mooter. I failed at becoming a businessman. I failed at finding a new job and life in California. I failed at keeping my marriage together.

Yet, somehow, I ended up where I wanted to be at 32 - a decent job, close to family, with friends and loved ones close by.

If I had succeeded then I'd have failed now. I'm glad I failed.

Happy New Year.

Crazy Stupid Long

2008-12-17T15:27:00.002+08:00

By request, I've decided to share my experiences with the crazy new Johor Checkpoint, from the bus taker's perspective. Suffice to say, I managed to get an eyeful of the suck that Cowboy Caleb's wife experienced.

I've take the bus into JB twice weekly, for the last year. For bus-takers, the old experience was fairly simple and no-fuss. Get on a bus at Kranji or Woodlands checkpoint (your pick), alight bus at Woodlands, alight again at the old Johor checkpoint, and from there either (i) hoof it to City Square or (ii) take the bus all the way to Larkin.

The new Johor checkpoint, in a word, sucks.

For one, the checkpoint is now located further away from the Causeway. Hoofing it from the checkpoint to City Square is about the same distance as just hoofing it across the Causeway.
The only other exit point by foot is the Jalan Jim Quee. I checked out that exit, and since I don't know where the damn thing leads, it might as well be in the middle of nowhere.
The bus platforms are now split to Platform A and Platform B. The split seems entirely arbitrary. Previously, all SBS buses used (roughly) the same platform, so if all you wanted was to get to Kranji or Woodlands Checkpoint, you could take your pick of 160, 170, 950 and (if you were so inclined) the Causeway Express. Now, 950 and the Causeway Express is on a different platform from 170 and 160. It makes no sense.
The 160 and 170 platform is the furthest platform away from the elevator. I'm not kidding. The SJE has a closer platform than the 160 and 170.
There are something like 20 immigrations stations at the new checkpoint and the queue is still moving like a snail. To be fair, it seems like the officers are actually checking passports now instead of waving a whole bunch of people through the lines. Still, it's excruciatingly slow.

In short, a trip to JB that would normally take me an hour would now take me an extra half an hour to one hour. It's insane.

My Mom is a FOB

2008-12-15T11:12:00.004+08:00

This is an awesome website. Brings to mind some of the conversations I've had with my mom.

A "FOB" stands for (F)resh (O)ff the (B)oat. That's often used as a derogatory term, representing the use of Engrish, and flawed understanding of western culture. To me, it shows that they are trying hard to understand and accept the world they are now in, albeit through murky lenses.

I especially love this story where a FOB mother refuses to take a "YES on Proposition 8!" sign because "Our family has the gay!".

***********

The often-cited "Singapore is not ready for XYZ social change because of traditional conservative social values" is a bunch of crock. Quite beyond the often-hilarious aspect of this website, I think it provides a stark insight into how traditional asian values are not incompatible with modern social issues like same-sex marriage.

To me the question here is this - which value are you championing?

What is more traditional than loving your children unconditionally?

What is more traditional than wanting your children to have a happy marriage?

What is more traditional, more Chinese, than wanting your children to have a better social conditions than the one you come from?

Answer these questions, then tell me again that social change is incompatible with Asian values.

Abrazare

2008-12-15T09:36:00.003+08:00

I returned to Sunday practice yesterday after a long absence. Apart from the exhaustion and morning aches today, I think I learnt quite a bit from yesterday's class.

Abrazare, or unarmed combat, is the foundation of swordplay. It is the foundation because the basics of body movement, balance and combat can all be found in this portion of the treatise. To be specific, the domination of the center line, grounding and breaking the opponent's structure are all aspects that get repeated throughout the text, but are most readily apparent in abrazare.

Our training yesterday was essentially wrestling. Strikes, counters, takedowns. The interesting thing about wrestling is how easy the situation turns into two just just grunting and pushing against each other with no avail. This is not ideal - a quick cover to break structure, or relaxing firm but guarded is a far better way of eventually taking out the enemy.

I've also discovered half-speed wrestling is much harder to do than full-speed, mostly because the periods of destabilisation usually take place only for a split second. Half-speed, people tend to restabilise themselves long before being able to take advantage of it.

Klein-Four Group

2008-12-05T16:50:00.001+08:00

Another awesome video. Stumbled across this at the Penny Arcade forums.

Prop 8 - The Musical

2008-12-04T09:25:00.002+08:00

This video is fricking hilarious!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

(HT to Kathleen)

RIP - Ms Lo Hwei Yen

2008-11-29T23:30:00.002+08:00

Sometimes I get forcibly reminded what a small place Singapore is.

In spite of the fact that she must be a few years my junior at law school, I don't claim to know Ms Lo well - in fact, the first and only time I spoke to her was at a mutual friend's wedding. That was about a year ago. She struck me as a friendly, intelligent person. I didn't speak to her that much, only enough to make polite conversation.

And now, she is gone, a senseless victim to a horrible, horrible act.

Farewell, Ms Lo. I hope you are in a better place now.

I'm Sorry

2008-11-14T15:02:00.002+08:00

Part of the process of growing up is the ability to look back on your life and say "Gods, what a big a-hole I was back then." It is in this spirit that I write the following apologies. Names will be withheld on the off-chance that the person reads my blog, or knows the person I'm referring to. The instances will be fairly specific though, because that's the nature of the apology.

*****************

To A, who I deliberately set out to annoy at Pre-U Sem in 1993. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have deliberately scratched my spoon against the metal serving tray after you told me how much it disturbed you. I still think it's funny that it would annoy you, but I shouldn't deliberately set out to annoy you, especially since you were one of very few people that were kind to me at Pre-U Sem, at a very difficult point in my life. Thank you.

To the V guys, who I used to dress up as vampires with. Yes, I was pretty much a control freak. It took me a while to realise that what you wanted was your own game, and that it was fundamentally incompatible with my vision of what the game was. Instead of ceding that point gracefully, I held on far longer than I should. In short, my apologies for being a jerk. I'd like to add that the fact that I turned out to be right in the long run does not excuse the fact that I acted like a jerk in driving the point home.

To the D Club in University, I'm sorry I bailed out after the first year. I think I could have gone further, and done much more, and grown even more as a person. Instead, I ran away because I couldn't cope with the idea that heavyweights were coming. I should have been the bigger man and brought my game up.

To the D Club in ACJC, I'm sorry to have acted like a jaded cynical jerk. You were young and full of potential and idealism, neither of which I was. Instead of acting as a silent anchor, the pillar of strength that you needed me to be, I used you to fulfil the fantasy of what I couldn't achieve in my time there. Instead of ceding the point gracefully, I stayed longer than I should, used up potential I had no right to. I'm sorry.

To the L class in University, I'm sorry to have acted like a jerk in my first year. I can't even think of a reason why this would be. I'd blame the large number of inaccessible attractive women, but that's my shortcoming, not theirs.

To the T guys in Sec 2 and 3, I'm sorry to have acted like a self-righteous twerp. I want you to know that I wasn't the only one who ratted out you guys, but I think it was fair that you guys took things on me alone, since I was the most self-righteous twerp among them. I have to take responsibility for my own actions, even if they were influenced by peer pressure. Truth is, I think I badly wanted you guys to like me, and my trying to please both the good and bad boys left me nowhere. It's a lesson I carry to heart now, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to have learnt it.

To the kids at CC, I'm sorry I bailed out on you. Truth was, I was there for a gal, one of your teachers. On the way I grew to love you too. I never expected to, and I didn't want someone who didn't believe to guide you. Because that would have been unfair, even more so than my motives for going.

To C, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lead you on when I was so unsure myself. Of all the reasons I've hurt people, yours was the most senseless. You've done me a world of good that I can never repay you without hurting you at the same time. I'm sorry.

To L, I'm sorry to have said all those things to you. I know I've fallen far short of the person you wanted me to be. To be fair, you've fallen far short of the things that you've promised to me, but I now know that promises aren't meant to be kept or broken - they are just promises, statements of best intention, and life changes, even if intentions don't. I wish I could say I still have a place in my heart for you, but I don't. For that, more than anything else, I'm sorry.

*****************

I know I can never find forgiveness for these acts. Most of them happened so long ago that I'm probably the only person that remembers them. Yet, perhaps the deeper lesson is that I don't have to. Forgiveness isn't theirs to give anymore. It isn't even what I need.

What I need, I've already obtained - the perspective and courage to say "Gods, I was such an A-hole!"

Bandwagon Jumping

2008-11-11T10:33:00.003+08:00

This won't be a critique of the IR woes. I think enough has been written about it. Instead, I'll write about another form of bandwagon jumping - stem cell research.

Personally, I think that the whole biotech industry in Singapore is extremely ill-conceived. Yes, we can pour potentially unlimited amounts of money into the infrastructure and education system to attract R&D in Singapore. However, Singapore is never going to be a major biotech center for as long as they do nothing to home-grow the sector.

Home-growing the sector, however, will require a deep shift in Singapore's policies. In short, there is no love for learning, no thinking outside the box, all because Singapore's education and economic system does not support breadth of endeavour, but is instead geared towards a cog in the machine.

In short, we suck at R&D because we've never learnt the joys of learning. We think too small, too rigidly and are too afraid of failure.

Singapore has been moderately successful in stem cell research thus far in part because of the Bush Administration's moritorium on stem cell research. That will change soon. President-Elect Obama is poised to reverse this moritorium.

My prediction? I think this will send a flood of R&D investments back to the US. Singapore will then pay the price of not home-growing talent, and wonder where it all fell apart, and slash its wrists to give more tax incentives, more funding to get these companies to stay. Those that do will probably pay lip service and outsource the least intellectually rigourous parts of the R&D to Singapore, benefiting for the tax rebates while doing most of the heavy-lifting in the US.

As a result, Singapore doesn't benefit one bit from technology trickle-down. Sure, it will make some hue and cry by saying it remains competitive, and earn some tax dollars, but it won't get the ACTUAL benefits of technology and skills transfer.

So there we are again. We're stuck, having sunk 500 million on overpriced facilities that we will be underutilising. Will we ever learn?

Yes We Can

2008-11-07T08:02:00.003+08:00

I will remember the day Barack Obama was elected POTUS. I was in Redwood City, California, at a restaurant, having dinner with my new colleagues at the last company in Sillicon Valley still hiring new employees. I saw his acceptance speech later that night at the bar of the hotel I was staying in.

He was magnificent.

**********

Many detractors of Obama had told me earlier this year that change, by itself, means nothing. Change can mean the dawn of a new golden age. Change can also be getting run down by a truck.

I now have an answer for them.

You are right. Change -is- a neutral concept, neither good nor bad. However, that is only half an answer. To answer the question this way ignores what has come before and what is going to happen ahead. It ignores the 8 years we have watched the worlds only superpower flush itself down a toilet.

Simply put, no one calls for change when things are going right.

So yes, change is neutral, but a call for change is always positive. It means the first step in solving a problem: it acknowledges that we have a problem in the first place. It is this way and ONLY this that we can grow.

This call has been answered at last.

**********

I originally went to America in search of a better life, to find a place that I could call my own. It was only when I returned that I realised I already had such a place - Singapore.

The lessons I learnt during my stay in America are, frankly, Hallmark Card moments. Love your parents. Value your friends. Do right by others. There's nothing profound about these lessons, except that I had to travel 8000 miles to learn them.

I was expecting to be choked up with seeing the part of America that I loved so much and missed so badly. Instead I felt...nothing. No tears, no change, no choking up. When I went back to my old stomping grounds, I actually felt a little disappointed. Was this what I worked so hard to return to?

That's when I realised that, over the last two years, I had outgrown California. That is and has always been a symbol of freedom, hope and love for me. Like all symbols, they were not valueable in and of itself, but for the messages they conveyed. Once you grok the message, well, there isn't that much left.

I didn't need California anymore. But I still appreciate it, like an old friend with whom you finally come to terms with, warts and all.

So here it is. My final lesson. Never lose hope. Money lost can be earnt back. Opportunities will come again. Failures will stop stinging. Love can be found again.

Take it from me. All that shit doesn't matter. I was penniless, jobless and torn up over all the opportunites I missed because I needed to nurse my emotional wounds. Today, I have a great job in a company I love. I have friends that I love, and family I learnt to see with new eyes.

Tomorrow they may all be gone, but it won't matter.

Only hope matters. Hope is what will keep you going, because nothing can keep you down forever, so long as you have hope. Hope makes the bad times liveable, and the good times magical. Hope is all. With hope we can do anything, live through anything, achieve anything.

Yes we can.

The Ten Commandments, Redux

2008-10-31T12:21:00.003+08:00

This is seriously too funny not to share.

A bunch of Christians have gathered at the famous golden bull statue outside of the NYSE to pray for economic recovery. Except that I am pretty sure the Ten Commandments have something against this exact situation.

No, really. Golden. Bull. Praying. I'm expecting Charlton Heston to walk out of the NYSE Building any minute bearing clay tablets.

Here's the video.

(HT: Zach, who linked me to Wonkette.)

Zinger

2008-10-30T10:33:00.005+08:00

"First, all the countries that got access to the Fed’s swap lines are US allies, and all except Singapore are democracies. Russia may be part of the G-8 but it is outside of this club."

- Brat Setser, "At this rate the world's economy will be remade before November 15th".

**********

The article is not about Singapore of course. I am amused, however, at how off-the-cuff the reference to Singapore not being a democracy is. There is also a remark that Singapore is considered a developing economy.

The article is pretty good though in highlighting that our traditional understanding of the global economy will shift fundamentally. The IMF has already moved in ways that are considered deeply non-traditional, economies like Singapore, Korea and Brazil are getting swaps at terms similar to G-10 countries, etc.

My 0.02 prediction will be that the focus of the world economy will eventually become more mulilateral, which is a good thing by my books. Perhaps it will finally drive home the fact that our global economy is truly global now.

The Minibonds Continued

2008-10-28T10:09:00.002+08:00

I've been reading some comments on Tan Kin Lian's blog post, here and here.

Some of the points that I have raised in my post have been addressed by the various commentators on Tan Kin Lian's blog. To summarise, the points are:

That the Minibonds were marketed in a way that did not fully disclose their risks; and
That the differences in interest rates between fixed deposits and minibonds were so small that no sane person would have taken the risk of credit default just to get that extra returns if the risk had been properly disclosed.

I have two responses: hindsight bias, wilful ignorance and self-serving bias.

*************

Yes, I agree that there is some level of misselling involved in the Minibonds. However, I also think that there is some level of misselling involved in EVERY structured financial product out there. What makes the Minibonds so special?

I think that the differences in interest rates between fixed deposits and Minibonds is a fair argument, but one that is ultimately tainted by hindsight bias. Essentially, the argument is that investors who sought a safe investment invested in this product because they thought Minibonds were safe. And now that they are proven not to be safe, they want their money back.

The problem is, back in 2006 - 2007, Minibonds WERE thought to be safe. No one who bought the Minibonds back in 2006 - 2007 that Lehman Brothers would go under.

My question here is this: Did you really think that the increase in returns for the Minibonds as compared to the FD would come for free? If you didn't, then congrats, you made an error of judgment, and have no one to blame but yourself, but at least you have the moral courage to admit to yourself that you took increased risk for increased returns.

However, if you thought that you essentially got a free lunch, then it would probably be because you thought the credit event would never happen. Except it did. And you cannot possibily be in the wrong because, well, you're not.

Except that you are. Because what you are doing is looking at the investment with the benefit of hindsight, realizing that the investment were not as safe as YOU THOUGHT THEY WERE, and grasping for every bit of wrongdoing available to absolve you from responsibility of your bad decision.

THAT is why I don't think the Minibond investors should have any more compensation than any other sort of investor - because they made the same error of judgment that everyone else made in the market, but they are getting absolved from their responsibility without admitting any errors on their own part.

That makes me sick.

*************

The second issue here is why I draw a distinction between Uncles and Aunties asking for their money back and every other investor. Uncles and Aunties have no capability of finding out what their risk profile is, while the average investor (presumably fairly well-educated) does.

The question is not whether the investors know about their risk profile. The question is whether they have the means to find out.

In the former case, the Uncles and Aunties don't. They are fully reliant on the banking-sales-persons to tell them what exactly their investment entails. In this case, the misselling involved has an aggravated effect, and it would be just and fair to compensate these people.

In the latter case, what we have is wilful ignorance. They have the option of finding out more about their investment instead of listening to everything their salesman tells them. Had this been a sports car rather than a financial product I suspect that this would exactly have been the case. Except it wasn't.

The sole concession I will make is that prospectuses aren't the most legible of disclosure tools. Still, a basic principle applies - if you don't understand it, why did you invest in it? You wouldn't do that for a car, or a house or any other major purchase in your life.

*************

Given these two factors, I will bring on my third point - that it is entirely possible that your average investor believes himself to be an innocent victim, even though he is not.

The problem here is that it is very human to intepret an ambigious situation to your advantage. As argued before, the situation is VERY ambigious. The banks are at fault, the individual bankers are at fault, the institution is at fault, and the individual investor is also at fault.

I believe that is what is happening in this situation: everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else EXCEPT themselves, in hopes that in the confusion, someone will relieve them of the burden of their bad decision.

*************

I do not believe these to be theoratical factors by far - I've argued these points from a very human perspective. I think talking to individual investors for the Minibonds saga is a surefire way of losing objectivity in this exercise - everyone is a victim in their own mind.

IF you want to be objective about this whole exercise, ask the important question - why are Minibond investors getting compensated while the buyers of other structured financial crap is getting diddly squat?

The Minibonds Issue

2008-10-24T13:45:00.006+08:00

Warning: This post will contain unkind language and unkind generalisations. I make these generalisations because they are, by-and-large, true. Please do not email me with stories about how Singaporeans / Bloggers / Government / Bankers aren't actually like that. I'm not fucking interested.

*************

I've been following Singapore Daily for coverage on the Minibonds issue. I'm annoyed as hell because the coverage is basically:

The Government must do something!
The Government sucks because they are following what everyone else did!
Tan Kin Lian rawks!

I have no issue with praise for Tan Kin Lian. He did a good deed in the middle of a crisis, and should be commended.

I have a huge issue with the rest because, as always, it's myopic at best, an outright shirking of responsibility at worst.

****************

Let me start with this basic principle.

The Government owes you nothing, because they weren't the ones stupid enough to buy the bonds, you were. This basic principle holds unless you can show wrongdoing, which I will get to in a minute. For summary, this is directed not at the Uncles and Aunties that lost their life savings because of mis-selling. I'm directing this to your average greedy, ignorant Singaporean that wants easy riches but doesn't want to do the work to earn it.

Face it: you got screwed over because you were greedy and ignorant. You, the moron who didn't do basic research, who got swayed by snazzy salesmanship and aggressive selling. This information was available on the internet 2 years ago. Caveat fucking emptor.

You're the one that's getting a free ride out of this. You're riding on the coattails on sympathy for Uncle and Auntie to get bailed out of a bad decision. You don't deserve spit, let alone sympathy.

****************

To the bankers who sold this pile of junk - grow a spine and some balls and face up to the fact that you've rogered the pooch. About the only thing I'm happy about here is that you're now past the lawyer as the most hated profession in the world.

Learn the phrase product-driven sales and what it means. That means answering my mother's question about what happens in a Credit Event. Don't slink away, say "I don't know" and never return my mother's call. It's your job to know. Do your job.

(Full Disclosure: My mother refused to buy minibonds because the banker couldn't answer her question.)

One more thing: Don't give me bullshit about your commissions, incentives and pay structure. I know that your job is essentially a sales job, and like all sales jobs, they are primarily commission based. I also know that whenever a commission in on the line, all bets are off, so chances are, I believe that you did missell to Uncles and Aunties, because your commission is on the line.

Don't give me bullshit about industry pressure. You can always find another one. The fact is, you're probably in this line because you thought it would make you the most money. The fact that the banking sales culture is fucked up doesn't mean you have to be. That argument didn't work too well for the Nazi's either. (And a massive HT to Godwin's Law!)

****************

To the employers of these bankers, guess what? You screwed up too!

Look at that incentive structure of yours. Go on, take a good hard look at it and tell me you didn't design it to maximise sales while paying lip service to whatever corporate governance structure your lawyers / accountants / consultants slapped together to make the absolute minimum requirements required by law and commerce. I dare you.

****************

Government, you're not off the hook either.

You failed too. You failed in the basic fundamental principle of government, and you failed it because you've lost credibility.

You see, when you decided to unliaterally impose your massive pay raises, you were basically setting yourself up for failure. You can't live up to those expectations you've set for us in justifying those pay packages. No one can. Don't even bother trying because you will fail and look stupid for it.

The fact is, everything that has happened since then, from electricity hikes to Mas Selamat to Melamine is being blamed on you because you have set yourselves up as infallible leaders. It doesn't matter if you can't control these events. The fact is, Singaporeans will take every opportunity to strike out at you because you've set yourself up to be struck at. That is why Singaporeans will never be satisfied with what you do, because you've set yourself up so high that even you can't live up to those expectations.

I understand the fact that these pay packages are more to encourage the next generation of leaders to rise up rather than to benefit yourselves. Just because I understand it tournament theory doesn't mean everyone does.

How does it relate to this situation? Doing nothing and studying the situation may have been the best option, but you don't have that option because you've lost credibility. You've lost the faith of the people that you will do what is in their best interests. EVERYTHING you do now will be interpreted as a callous action designed to take money from their pockets and put it into yours. You have no buffer of good faith left, no emotional bank account to draw on.

****************

Now that I have ranted enough, I will give you my take on this situation.

On a practical level, Tan Kin Lian is right. The reason why the government will be drawn into any large scale issue like this is because, quite frankly, our access to the justice system sucks. There's no class-action mechanism, nor is there a contingency fee arrangement of any sort. Say what you want, but a combination of these two -is- necessary for large scale dispute resolution of this sort.

On this basis, what I suggest would be the best action for the government to do would be to set up some kind of expedited, collective arbitration process for this. Appoint a couple of independent arbitrators, a couple of counsel on either side, and let this thing play out.

The reason I'm suggesting this is because I don't want to see free-riders in the equation. I'm happy to restore Uncle and Auntie's money IF the sales tactics used on them were reprehensible (and I'm almost sure that at least some of them were). I'm not happy to see a greedy, ignorant Singaporean being relieved of the consequences of his decision.

This also has the added advantage of a possible scouting ground for future leaders. This sort of thing isn't easy to organise. It requires some level of community grassroots experience, or financial know-how, or legal know-how, plus a healthy level of community spirit (or sheer ego) all of which are shoe-ins for future leaders of Singapore.

My 0.02, as usual.

Diversification, Costs and Dollar-Cost Averaging

2008-10-14T14:49:00.003+08:00

This is the last instalment of my finance series.

So you want to invest in the stock market. The question is, what sort of stocks should you invest in? I've alluded to the issue of having to keep your investments locked for a fairly long period of time if you want to minimise the volatility of your investments. Unfortunately, companies come and companies go. Who even remembers Broderbund, or American Locomotive, or TSR, just to name a few? At times, even entire industries become defunct. Locomotives, steamships, ice-trawlers, all of these technologies have been surpassed by newer, better inventions. Yet, there was a time where these were considered safe investments.

So how do you know if a company is a good investment for the next couple of decades? You don't. You just need to diversify.

To use a simplistic example, when the price of oil goes up, oil companies do well, transport companies do badly. The reverse is true. Obviously, the solution is not to time your investments according to the price of oil (which is speculation and speculation is bad). The solution would be to invest in both, so that your investment becomes effectively immune to the volatile prices of oil.

Taken to the logical extreme, you would need to invest in a company of every type there is in the world in order to get true diversity. Is that even possible? Fortunately, there are shortcuts around this, and this is where I bring in index-investing and my rant a month ago.

An index is essentially a composite of the biggest movers and shakers in a certain stock market. The much-cited but often-misunderstood S&P 500 is an example. The short version - the S&P 500 is a composite of the stock prices of the 500 biggest companies in the United States, accounting for 80% of all the money that is raised through the NYSE and NASDAQ. It is safe to say that whatever happens to the S&P 500 index is indicative of the entire NYSE and NASDAQ, which is why it is usually cited as an quickie way of indicating a certain country's stock market performance. Other indices include the Nikkei (for Japan), the Hang Seng (for Hong Kong) and the STI (for Singapore). There exist funds out there that allow you to invest in these indices as a whole. The Vanguard S&P 500 is considered the god-king of all index funds, and if you have the means and ability to invest in this, this is definitely an option.

As you can see, index investing allows you to diversify quite simply. It does not offer true diversification, because each index usually covers only one country and certain factors can affect entire countries while leaving others intact, but it does make your job a lot simplier. My personal opinion is that economies are now so inter-connected that if you invest in a developed index, the general movements will be about the same. This graph tracking the S&P 500 and the STI sort of makes my point, though I note that the tracking is most true after 1996.

I've alluded to another investment vehicle in my earlier post - the iShares S&P 500 which is pretty much the same thing, though brokerage commissions makes this cost prohibitive for any single investment below 10k.

Which brings me to my next point of investing - cost.

************

Every "movement" in your investment incurs cost. Buying and selling shares involve brokerage commissions of 0.28% for discount brokerages in Singapore, or $25, whichever is less. Clearly, then, the cost of investment is prohibitive unless you can accumulate $10k to invest at a time.

Your other options are funds. Funds have their own problems. Usually, funds in Singapore allow you to put in small sums in every month, BUT, they charge you much larger ratios for this privelege. We're talking anywhere from 2 - 5 % upfront, and anywhere from 1 - 1.75% every year you keep the money in the fund. So yes, this is not an optimal solution either.

The cost of investment in Singapore is one of the reasons I wrote about my frustration over investing in Singapore all those months back. Your options are basically (i) invest in a fund, get ripped off (ii) invest in shares yourself, but only once everytime you accumulate 10k worth of cash or (iii) invest in a foreign fund, and get charged for overseas custodial fees (the fees the brokerage charges for keeping foreign shares on your behalf).

It would appear that (ii) is the best option, and in a lot of ways, it is. There is however, one catch to that.

************

My final point of investing is dollar-cost averaging. I spoke in my previous post about investing early and often. One reason is the "head-fake" I wrote about. The other is actually average out your costs of shares over the long term to overcome volatile stock prices.

Dollar-cost averaging is a simple concept. Every month you put aside some savings, say $1000. Every month, you sock this money away into a fund, or shares, whichever you prefer, and buy whatever amount of shares you can afford with this sum. This way, you average out the cost of shares over a long period of time, and you will get a roughly smooth progression of the price of shares without the volatility affecting it.

The issue with option (ii) above is that most people will take a long time to accumulate $10k. This tends to screw around with dollar cost averaging a little. The fewer times you invest, the more volatilty will affect you.

************

As with all things in life, there is no perfect solution. Each investment is a series of trade-offs you must make. However, if you reach the point where you can consider the trade-offs in your investment strategy, you're probably on the right track, and have avoided most of the major mistakes in investing.

Good luck, Pendragon. I've taught you as much as I can summarise in four posts. There's a lot more to learn, but the basics are mostly here. As with swordsmanship, there are things that definitely don't work, but even among the things that work, you have a choice. Take what you've learnt, make those choices, and turn this knowledge into your own.

Why Invest?

2008-10-06T10:36:00.004+08:00

With all my cautionary tales about the stock market, it's a wonder that anyone even bothers to invest, much less in the stock market. Why bother, when a long term savings or FD is practically riskless and gives a steady return?

Here's the reason: you invest because over time, all other things being equal, your money is worth less.

We've all heard about inflation, that 3-5% per annum force of economic nature. Simply put, your money buys 3-5% less every year, year on year. In most situations, you're better off just buying whatever you want now, as opposed to next year, or over 25 years. Unfortunately, if you want to save your money for a future purchase, that money's going to be worth a lot less over time.

Compare. An FD or long term savings account gives you 1.5 - 2% per annum interest. Average inflation is about 3 - 5 %. That means you lose 1% on a good year, 3.5% on a bad year. That's slow death.

So why invest in a stock market? Because it pays the best over the long term.

The key here is to recognise that there is no free lunch. Whenever you choose a vehicle to invest in, you are taking a cost-benefit analysis of risk versus returns.

Think about it this way. FD's and long term savings plans pay low interest precisely because there are so many protections in place to ensure that the savings do not suddenly disappear. For example, banks are required by law to keep a certain sum of money available to support withdrawals from bank accounts. Even if the bank goes belly-up, you will get something back.

Stocks are different. Stocks represent ownership of a small piece of the company. If a company goes belly-up, you can be almost sure that you lose the money you invested, with nothing back. The upside is that when the company makes money, you make money too.

The second thing about stocks are that they are volatile like crazy over the short term. By volatile, I mean their prices generally fluctuate over a large range. Again, compare this to FD's. The returns of an FD general fluctuates between decimal places of a percentage point. The returns of stocks can be large gains OR large losses. Generally, volatility causes more people to lose money than gain it, because people tend to do things to avoid loss rather than consolidate gains. In other words, people tend to panic sell more when stock prices are low, but hold on to shares much longer than necessary to maximise their gains (another argument against short term investing).

However, it's a fairly well-known fact that over a long period of time, stocks outperform almost every other form of investment. We're talking anywhere from 7 - 15 % over the long term, year on year, and depending on your stock investment strategy. If you remember the inflation rates, that's almost 4 - 10% over inflation.

The implications of stock investing are as follows:

Don't invest what you can't afford to lose in the stock market.
Be honest with yourself about whether you can really afford to lose this sum
Build a long term strategy for stock investment and stick to it. This is a "head-fake" to get your panic-sell and over-holding reflexes under control.
Make sure it's a LONG TERM strategy. Hold those stocks for at least 15 years. That's the minimum amount of time you'll take to see long term gains on your stocks.
Because you need to hold those stocks for such a long time, create an investment strategy that involves companies that will be around for the next 15 years or so.

That's the basic strategy for investing in the stock market. In future weeks I will be writing about my favourite fire-and-forget solution to investing in the stock market as a whole.

Investing vs Gambling

2008-09-30T09:25:00.003+08:00

A friend of mine had asked me for basics of how to invest in the stock market. I'm writing some basic fundamentals but they will probably be seen as near-heretical by most financial professionals. Neverthless, here it is.

When people talk about "investing" in stocks, they can mean one of two things (1) short-term, which means they do things like trying to time the market such that they can buy stocks for cheap and sell them for expensive and (2) long-term, where the investor simply takes advantage of the fact that, over 20+ years or more, the stock market will tend to do better than not.

The reason why people like to do short term investing in stocks is precisely the reason why I think it's a terrible idea - because stock prices fluctuate a lot over the short term. The basis to short term investing in stocks is that every company's stock price fluctuates because of factors inherent in the company or in the market as a whole. Know enough of the factors, predict them accurately, and you have a profit on your hands.

I think this is a load of baloney.

What you are trying to do with short-term investing is that you are trying to make an accurate prediction given incomplete information. So is everyone else. The only time someone has a fairly complete picture is when the stock market actually takes everyone's incomplete picture and turns it into a price. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

Oh wait. Does that sound a bit like picking a winning horse at the turf club?

The reason why people like talking about playing the stock market in this way is because it gives them the illusion of being better than everyone else. People love talking about how much money they've made in the stock market, TOTO, 4D etc. It's riches, quick and easy, and socially affirming to boot. What they don't tell you is how much they have lost investing in stocks over the long run. I doubt they know themselves.

So the first question you need to ask yourself when you are investing - are you really doing it to invest in your future? Or are you doing it to be fashionable and make a quick buck? If you are doing it for the latter, I have no advice for you. I don't joke about money. If you're doing it for the latter, I'll write more.

Otherwise, I advise you to find some other person. There's a money manager I can introduce to you. :)

Investments in Singapore

2008-09-24T22:57:00.004+08:00

I've been speaking to a money manager over the last week. I will say that I am completely underwhelmed by the investment product offering in Singapore. For one, the product offering shown to me by that money manager (who will remain anonymous) consists largely of managed funds with high front-loads, high rear-loads and high expense ratios.

I have several objections to this.

The first is that I am not paying good money to have people make my financial decisions for me. I will pay some money for being able to get a diversified portfolio with only a few choice picks. I will pay for the convenience of someone administering my money for me. I will even pay for the convenience of not having to remember to get my trade every month, and to make sure my money is locked in for the long term. These are things I will pay for. Not for my decision making process to be taken from me by the same financial engineers yahoos responsible for the current hullabaloo in the markets now.

The second is that my investment on returns, no matter how good the mutual fund is, WILL be eaten away by the outrageous fees charged by the fund managers. An expense ratio of 1% means that the fund needs to perform at least 1% better than average to give me average returns. Excuse me?!

The last is that I get the impression that the money manager wasn't listening. I told her I didn't want managed funds. I told her pretty explicitly. I don't blame her for trying. I just told her that these guys don't seem to be carrying the products I want for my investment.

**************

For those of you who haven't already figured out, I'm a believer of index fund investing. The problem is FINDING an index fund in Singapore worth investing in. I can hardly believe that some of these funds in Singapore dare call themselves index funds.

Lion Global Investors, I'm looking straight at you when I say this.

Let's take a very simple product offering - the Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund. It is better than many funds out in the market today. When I say better, I mean "less of a ripoff". Its front load is a lowly 2%, and its expense ratio is 1.17%. Which sounds pretty okay compared to a 5% front load and an expense ratio of 1.75% right?

Wrong. Take a look at this - the fund that the Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund is supposed to be mirroring. Yes, you saw right. The expense ratio is 0.3%, without a frontload. This flies in the face of every index fund principle I know. Infinity is supposed to be mirroring an index. The whole point of an index fund is to reduce the expenses to a minimum, and bet that the stock market on the whole will do well over time. What is this nonsense about a 2% upfront?! Why are you charging a spread of 0.77% over the US 500 Stock Index Fund for blinding following the S&P 500 index?

I cannot blame people for wanting to earn a living. I can understand earning a living. I cannot understand people wanting to earn a living through exploiting me less than the competition.

**************

I'm going to take some time to highlight what I think is the only nugget of gold in index-based investing in Singapore - the iShares S&P 500 Index Fund. It's essentially like an index fund that is traded like shares on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

The reason I like the iShares is that it essentially tracks the S&P 500 for about the same expense ratio as a true index fund would, at 0.09% expense ratio. It also doesn't have a front load, which is great. The only catch is that it trades like shares on the stock exchange, so you have to pay brokerage fees, so there is a hidden "front load" of sorts, and there are clearing fees of 0.05% up to $200. However, brokerage fees range from 0.25 to 0.5 % in Singapore (depending on volume traded). That means my front load is 0.25% to 0.5% + 0.05%, and my backload is the same, which makes this FAR less than the Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund, which is its closest competitor.

Look. I can't do math that well, but even I know that 1 or 2 percentage points compounded over 25 years (which is the timeframe for investment I am looking at) is a massive difference.

*********************

Now all that I am short of is finding a financial institution that will essentially do what I tell them to and STFU about their over-engineered financial products. I am looking for a bank or brokerage that will take a fixed amount every month and buy whatever they can of the product portfolio I tell them to buy, every month, on the month, on the dot.

In short, I'm looking for a system that forces me to be responsible, disciplined and act as my prosthetic memory. The reward for this (which is a pretty simple job if you think about it) is my brokerage fees, on the month, every month for 25 years, longer if I happen not to need the money after that.

Any takers?

Guilty Pleasure

2008-09-11T14:26:00.002+08:00

First person that came to mind when I saw this was Ilkka. The man who considers training for three hours three to four times a week the minimum necessary to retain his skill.

Demotivators

Salut!

This Blog

2008-09-10T14:54:00.002+08:00

I've been reading Pat Law's and Cowboy Caleb's post on the Singapore blogosphere.

I find it sad that a blog allows us to write about anything in the world, yet so many of us chose to write about ourselves. Is human nature that shallow, and the world that fragmented that we need to literally put ourselves out there for all and sundry to view?

I am not going to take the high road - I'm guilty of some of the sins that Pat Law and Cowboy Caleb have set out. Recently, too, my posts have been irregular and of pretty crappy quality. It is with this in mind that I'm going to try to set out what my blog is.

I write this blog for various, evolving reasons. In the past, this blog was a dumping ground for the dissatisfaction I felt for Singapore, and by extension, my life. This post "The Singapore Condition" I wrote 3 years ago remains one of my favourite, and one of my reader's favourites as well.

But life being life has taken a huge unexpected turn. I never expected to be back in Singapore, under those circumstances to boot. Things have changed. I have changed. My blog has also changed.

I stopped writing about my complaints about Singapore, mostly because I find myself with very few complaints. Singapore has improved. It is a long way from being ideal, but the lesson I paid blood to learn was this: you do what you can, and let God sort the rest out. Being impatient for change changes nothing.

This is my blog now. It is a collection of posts which generally falls into the following niches:

(1) Historical European Swordsmanship. I write about this fairly often of late because it is my interest. My fellow swordsman, Kenneth, maintains a nice blog for the techically inclined. Tome takes cool pictures. I don't want to reinvent the wheel here. My niche of a niche is to write about swordsmanship in a way that is hopefully understandable to the non-swordsman. I don't think there's enough of that around, and I hope that this blog would at least give a non-swordsman a glimpse of what we actually do.

(2) Inner Space Articles. A dear friend once described these posts as my version of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I write a lot about hope and love and renewal. That is because these are things that I've given a lot to understand, and I am beginning to gain a glimmer of wisdom about these things. I write these to firm up my ideas, and to hopefully allow readers some insight into some hard-won lessons of life.

(3) Current Events. I tend to focus more on US based news than Singapore based news these days. I also tend to be a bit more picky about the current events I choose to comment on, mostly because I am sick of the same tired arguments being trotted out by the Singapore blogosphere. So unless I have a fresh spin on things, I'll keep quiet. Assume that I have libertarian-liberal leanings alright?

(4) Interesting events in my life. I promise to write only when something genuinely interesting happens in my life and not write for the sake of writing.

One last thought. I've never written for the sake of traffic. I write for the sake of being read. And I hope that you will continue reading.

A Note from Future Self to Past Self

2008-09-09T14:32:00.004+08:00

Tor,

I know the blog title is a bit dramatic. Nevertheless, that's how I feel when I speak to you, even intermintently, even if it is through this clumsy medium of my blog.

I've been putting off writing this message for a long time, not because I didn't want to say anything, but because I didn't know what to say. It's the sense of having a feeling but not knowing how to express it well.

You've commented often that you see me as what you could possibly become. I feel the same way - I see you as a younger self if things had gone the way I wanted them to. It is no secret that I regret my inability to read law in England, or journalism in the US. In you, I get to live a vicarious life of how I would have lived if I had my way.

Or perhaps not.

You see, in spite of everything that I feel I have done wrong, every event I regret the necessity of, and every missed chance I cursed at, I never regretted the chances I did take, and the life I did lead. In you, I see the person I would have become even if my choices were different, the same essential person. To use your words, pompous, opinionated, hopelessly anal-retentive, paranoid, genuine, interesting and self-aware. In that sense, you offer me some hope, that these are parts of me that stick with me regardless of the occassionally fucked-up life choices I make.

You are right, of course, that self-absorption is alright only if it becomes self-awareness. No, it wasn't to cushion the impact on a fragile teenage ego that I didn't tell you. Some things you just have to find out for yourself. You wouldn't have believed me if I told you. I know I wouldn't.

Six years on, I offer you, perhaps, a modicum of hope that you may become less anal-retentive, pompous and opinionated. Life and age have their way of polishing away your rough edges. These days, I daresay I've become not only self-aware, but self-reflective, and I hope that you will eventually become the same.

Your Friend,
Anthony

Dagger Training

2008-09-08T14:28:00.003+08:00

I'm going to spend a bit of time writing about dagger duels in the context of the martial art I practice. For those of you not interested, there's a nice video of Jon Stewart taking a piss out of the GOP here.

We spent most of yesterday training with daggers. The daggers we use are wooden, about a foot long and look like glorified icepicks. For those who know what i am talking about, we train with rondels.

Because we primarily train with a piercing weapon, we do train for some things I would not even imagine using on modern knives, i.e grabbing or slapping the blade. Nevertheless, some of the stuff we do IS applicable to a modern knife fight, which brings me to my thoughts, which are

Speed kills
The default for a knife fight is a mutual kill
Let the other guy see what you are doing (HT: Chris Blakey)

Let me explain each.

*******************

Speed Kills

This adage is generally true to varying degrees. Acting and reacting faster than your opponent generally gives you an edge. This is especially true in dagger fights because of several reasons.

The first is that a dagger, as compared to unarmed, IS a situation where the first good strike will kill or disable, and your target area is almost the entire body, even if you are wearing armour. Contrast this with unarmed. A fist generally doesn't kill or disable with the first strike unless you are hitting somewhere pretty specific. If you want to disable someone while you are unarmed, you generally have to break their structure first before you throw/lock/break/disarm, which involves working your way into a position where you can do that.

The second is that, compared to a longer weapon, like a sword or poleax, the dagger has a much shorter tempo. It's almost as fast as moving your hand around unarmed. Contrast with a sword or a poleax, which trades some speed for a lot more power and measure.

In short, because (1) getting the first strike CAN lead to victory and (2) dagger use lends itself well to quick strikes, speed especially kills with dagger strikes.

(Note. Speed gives you an edge. It doesn't win you the entire fight. I've won dagger and sword bouts with someone I judge about half again as fast as I am. I've lost dagger and sword bouts to people half as slow as I am. It's more important to do things right than to do things fast. Doing things right AND fast generally kills though.)

*******************

The default for a dagger duel is a mutual kill

What happens in a dagger duel is that both sides will be wanting to strike first with the dagger, for the reasons I mentioned above. The first good dagger strike ends the combat, so there's plenty of incentive to move in for the kill fast. Because both people are thinking like that, it's likely both people will try to attack first. Baring massive disparities in speed, both are likely to inflict a killing or disabling wound. Both die.

Hence, the default for a dagger duel is a mutual kill.

Having that in mind, what we train for isn't maximising the speed of the first strike. That leaves a lot to chance, i.e it depends on having an opponent that is slower than you. What we do train for is to strive for control over the weapon, then launching a counterstrike.

That is to say, the key to winning a dagger duel is controlling the opponent's weapon.

*******************

Let the other guy see what you are doing

This is something brought up by Chris on Sunday's training, and I agree with him. There's no point attacking if the opponent cannot see what is happening. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out.

Recall that the most reliable method of winning a dagger duel is to control the opponent's weapon?

By controlling your initial attack and making it visible, you have (1) limited your opponent's options for defence down to the most appropriate response and can therefore (2) predict the counter-remedy ahead of time. What's more (3) if your opponent commits to his defense too early, you can change your line of attack fairly quickly and get him where he's not defending.

Moreover, making your attack committed and visible is it's own defense. You stop yourself from leading before your dagger covers you, which is the worst mistake you can make in a dagger duel, and often ends with you walking into the point of your opponent's dagger.

Chris demonstrated this for us during one of the bouts, and I believe him. I also tried this in one of my bouts against Robin, which lead to a very nice feint.

*******************

The one complaint I have about myself for dagger is that I've not been able to get into my head and muscles the proper counter-remedy measures. Because it's a fraction of a second (during the interrupted attack) of a fraction of a second (during the defense and remedy) I just kind of go into a spastic spasm when I'm supposed to execute a counter-remedy.

The only way to remedy this is more training I suspect. Anyone else encounter this?

Bandwagon Jumping

2008-09-08T13:21:00.002+08:00

My biggest objection to Sarah Palin isn't the fact that she's a neo-con, or that she wishes to impose her views on Creationism or reproduction rights by way of political machinery (HT: Tym). No, it's the fact that her appointment represents the worst political practice of all: bandwagon jumping.

If you are in political office, or have political aspirations, please take note. Don't insult the intelligence of your consituency. Someone will pick up on your bullshit. Have some conviction please.

Thank god the US has Jon Stewart. (HT: Zach)

Employment Day 1

2008-09-01T21:09:00.002+08:00

I know it's a bit of a shock to go from "Unemployment Day 1" to "Employment Day 1" but there you have it.

I generally don't write too much about my work, seeing as most of the stuff I work on tends to be confidential (professional hazard) and even the stuff I -can- write about, the context is confidential. Hence, I'll stick to writing about incredibly shallow things about my new job.

My new workplace is incredibly close to my home. It's about as close as one can get from my home, given the way Singapore's residential areas are zoned. That means I can get up at 8 in the morning, change, drive, park, walk to my office and still be in time for work at 9 with time to spare.
I have an office. This is the second time in my career I've had an office, the first was when I was a lowly peon-associate at my old law firm. This office is set up much more nicely than my old office too, with nice shelving and a big ass table I can actually hold meetings with.
My new office laptop is literally twice the size of my old office laptop with 3 times as much RAM. The only problem with it is that it has an European keyboard. No biggie, since I had some practice in Finland typing with it, but it gets annoying at times.
My new office is tiny. There's about 10 people located in Singapore, as compared to the hundreds at my old workplace. I enjoy the solitude, to some extent, but I do miss the hustle and bustle of the old workplace.

That's all for now.

And for those who are on my Facebook, yes I did actually get attacked by a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed monkey in Tioman.

Off on Holiday

2008-08-26T15:52:00.000+08:00

Response may be patchy. Will be back next week.

Unemployment Day 1

2008-08-18T23:46:00.002+08:00

7 am - got up, ran some errands.

8.30 am - parked car at Tanglin Mall, hoofed it to American Embassy.

9.30 am - took my attorney's oath, headed for breakfast at McDonalds while mucking a bit on the PSP.

10.30 am - headed home to change to gym clothes.

11.20 am - met friends at Jurong East Sports Council gym, was disappointed aerobics studio was not covered by gym admittance fee, worked out on treadmill, weights and incline board instead.

1 pm - headed out for lunch, yakked with friends over tea. Noted that today was like we were 13 again.

2.30 pm - headed for mom's home with friends in tow for an impromptu game of Dark Heresy.

5.30 pm - friends headed home, played with PSP some more.

8 pm - had dinner, watched Prime Minister's Rally, laughed my arse off.

9.30 pm - headed home, blogged, chatted online.

12 midnight - sleepzzzz

***********

I could get used to this, except I know I won't.

I've always been somewhat envious of people who know what their direction is. The best I can say about my life is that it is a series of unanswered or half-answered questions, like a infinitely divergent fractal pattern.

Part of the issue with me is that I do many things sort-of-well, but nothing truly exceptionally well. I love singing, except my voice is okay but not fantastic. I love acting, but I'm not tall, nor exceptionally pleasant-looking. I love debating but my mind moves faster than my mouth. I love writing but I've got more ideas than words to express them with. I love reading but each page I read just gives me more questions.

If you are clearly good at one thing, it's pretty darned obvious what you should be doing. If you do a million things sort of okay, then how do you decide what to do?

If you have only one burning question that you want answered, it's pretty darned obvious that the answer should set you in the right path. If you have a million questions to ask, which one do you ask first?

What should you do, if you can do anything? Is one choice really better than the other?

Google Interview Questions

2008-08-15T14:51:00.003+08:00

Found this on the net.

Since it's my last day at work, I thought it'd be fun for me to answer as many interview questions from Google as possible, in hopes that someone from Google might see this and whisk me away to the Googleplex.

1. How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?

By sheer guesstimation, a golf ball is a roughly spherical object an inch in diameter. A schoolbus will be assumed to be a 10 foot by 5 foot by 5 foot box (which I'm guesstimating as rough dimensions of a bus). Assuming I get perfect control over the way I stack spheres in a schoolbus, That would make (10 x 12) x (5 x 12) x (5 x 12) golfballs in the schoolbus. That makes 518400 golf balls.

Also, if I could do math, I would have been an accountant not a lawyer.

2. You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

I am about 66 inches tall. A nickel is about half an inch in diameter (which I assume what the question is asking, cos "height" could mean the thickness of the nickel). I weight about 160 pounds. I will weight 0.134 lbs or 2.1 ounces when I am shrunk down.

That's about the weight of 10 nickels, for perspective.

I would probably be able to generate enough force to really screw with the blades so that they won't even work, cos blender blades are actually pretty flimsy when force is applied perpedicular to the business end. Plus, most blenders have anti-locking mechanisms, so screwing with the blades will cause them to lock, which will in turn stop them from spinning.

3. How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

It depends on how much it would cost me, how many other people can wash all the windows in Seattle, and how much the people in Seattle want their windows washed in aggregate. I can plug in some numbers but it will pretty much be making shit up.

4. How would you find out if a machine’s stack grows up or down in memory?

Say what?

5. Explain a database in three sentences to your eight-year-old nephew.

(a) Imagine every book you could ever want.

(b) Imagine all of these books stored in one place.

6. How many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?

23 times, once an hour, except for midnight (or noon if you are callibrating from that point). Yes I know this is the wrong answer, but I'm being honest here.

7. You have to get from point A to point B. You don’t know if you can get there. What would you do?

I use Google maps, and follow the directions.

8. Imagine you have a closet full of shirts. It’s very hard to find a shirt. So what can you do to organize your shirts for easy retrieval?

I use my laundry as an indication of how used a set of shirts are. 4 washes a month means that shirt rises to the top of the pile, and get the most accessible area. Fewer washes go down the pile progressively. Shirts I never wash, I never wear, so that goes to the bottom of the pile, and into the least accessible area.

The unwashed shirts go to salvation army. The exception is winter clothing and suits. I will keep a set vacuum sealed and packed away for when I need it.

9. Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?

One of two things can occur - no one talks, or everyone talks.

In a situation where no one talks, no one does anything. This is because the queen of the village's information does not add anything new to the table. Because every married couple has cheated on his wife, and every woman knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, each woman knows that 99 of the men in the village has cheated - which corroborates what the queen has said. Because each woman cannot PROVE that her husband has cheated, no one dies.

If any one woman asks any other woman the magic question "Did my husband cheat?" and gets an honest answer, then every man in the village dies. ONE woman executing her husband signals to the rest of the wives that she knows her husband had cheated. However, since every woman knows that every other husband had cheated except their own, the fact that one husband is executed MUST mean that every husband in the village has cheated. Once this is established, all husbands will be executed.

10. In a country in which people only want boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. if they have a girl, they have another child. if they have a boy, they stop. what is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?

Dammit. I know this is an "infinite series that tends towards 100%" question but I can't remember the math.

11. If the probability of observing a car in 30 minutes on a highway is 0.95, what is the probability of observing a car in 10 minutes (assuming constant default probability)?

I can't even begin to figure out the math of this.

12. If you look at a clock and the time is 3:15, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands? (The answer to this is not zero!)

It's a quarter of one-twelfth of a full circle. That's 7.5 degrees.

13. Four people need to cross a rickety rope bridge to get back to their camp at night. Unfortunately, they only have one flashlight and it only has enough light left for seventeen minutes. The bridge is too dangerous to cross without a flashlight, and it�s only strong enough to support two people at any given time. Each of the campers walks at a different speed. One can cross the bridge in 1 minute, another in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes, and the slow poke takes 10 minutes to cross. How do the campers make it across in 17 minutes?

Have 10 minute dude hold the torch and walk across while 5, 2, and 1 walk across in sequence. Here's the math.

5 and 10 minute dude start. 5 minute dude outpaces 10 minute dude, but 10 minute dude has torch pointing forward. Illuminated, 5 minute dude finishes and 10 minute dude is halfway across the bridge.

At this point, 10 minute dude must stop and point the torch backwards. 2 minute dude takes 1 minute to reach 10 minute dude's location and another minute to cross the bridge. In the time it takes for 2 minute dude to cross the bridge, 10 minute dude would have waited 1 minute, and progressed another one-tenths of the bridge. He's now at the 60% mark of the bridge.

Then comes 1 minute-dude. 10 minute dude must wait 60% of a minute, or 36 seconds, for 1 minute dude to reach his position before being able to continue forward. 1 minute dude finishes the remaining distance in 24 seconds but that is irrelevant because 10 minute dude still needs another 4 minutes to complete the journey.

The total time taken to cross the bridge is 10 minutes plus wait time which is 1 minute and 36 seconds, for a total of 11 minutes, 36 seconds, well before 17 minutes.

14. You are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present including you and the friend. your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find that has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds that does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. would you accept the wager?

No, because statistically, you will need to find 2 birthday matches for every one non-birthday match there is in order to break even. Because the number of pairs for birthday matches is far less than the number of non-birthday matches, you will not find the critical mass you want no matter how many people there are in the room.

15. How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?

You know, I'd answer this question but McKinsey asks the same question. It's basically a bunch of numbers, assumptions and looking at the assumptions. I'll bite though.

There are 6 billion people in the world. 1.2 billion people live below the poverty line, and are too poor to buy pianos. 4.8 billion people remain. Since they are above the poverty line, it is fair to assume 5 people to a household (since large families tend to be associated with subsistence level living). 960 million families now.

Assuming a figure of 10% of these households have the inclination to own a piano. That's 96 million pianos worldwide. Assuming twice a year tuning, thats 192 million tunings a year. One piano takes a day to tune. Assuming 320 work days a year on average, it will take 600 thousand piano tuners worldwide to tune the pianos.

Assume also commercial piano ownage is negligible in light of this.

16. You have eight balls all of the same size. 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?

Grab any 6 balls. Weigh 3 per plate. 2 results can happen.

(a) Both sides are equal. You then weigh the remaining 2 balls and find the heavier one.

(b) One side is heavier than the other. You grab two balls from the remaining pile and weigh them. If one is heavier, that's your ball. If they are both equal, the remaining ball is the heavier one.

17. You have five pirates, ranked from 5 to 1 in descending order. The top pirate has the right to propose how 100 gold coins should be divided among them. But the others get to vote on his plan, and if fewer than half agree with him, he gets killed. How should he allocate the gold in order to maximize his share but live to enjoy it? (Hint: One pirate ends up with 98 percent of the gold.)

Start with the end in mind.

In a situation where there are only 2 pirates left, the fourth can either give everything to the fifth pirate, or the fifth pirate will vote no and the fourth will die. Hence, the fourth pirate will either die or live, but get nothing. He will be playing to avoid that situation, so he -will- vote yes to one gold coin, which is superior to all other alternatives.

If the situation reaches the third pirate, how the fifth votes depends on whether it is possible for the fifth pirate to force the third pirate to be executed and lead matters to the aforementioned situation with the fourth pirate. However, since the third needs only 1 vote, and since the fourth will vote for 1 gold coin, the third will divide the gold coin as 99 to himself and 1 for the fourth, securing his vote and making the fifth's vote irrelevant.

Hence, by the time it reached the third pirate's distribution, the fifth will get nothing. Hence, from the first to the second pirate, the fifth will vote yes to one gold coin, since it is impossible for the fifth to get a single gold coin if the third wants to ensure he gets away with the lion's share of the wealth while securing a vote.

Hence, the first pirate can give a gold coin to the fourth and fifth pirates, and keep 98 for himself. The fourth will accept one gold coin because any distribution prior to his own distribution that gives him one gold coin will result in a gain for him. The fifth pirate will not get anything by the time the third pirate distributes because the fourth pirate's situation will compel him to accept the offer of one gold coin from the third. Because he gains nothing by the time the third pirate's distribution comes around, he will accept a gold coin from anyone before the third pirate's distribution and make a gain. Two votes pass the resolution.

It isn't necessary to discuss the second pirate's situation anymore, since the second pirate's situation is identical to the first, but with a smaller pool of candidates. The second still needs 2 votes to secure his distribution, and he can essentially use the same solution as the first pirate.

What do you remember?

2008-08-13T11:12:00.001+08:00

Obtained this from the Alchemist.

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don’t speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want — good or bad. When you’re finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.

Choices

2008-08-04T14:10:00.002+08:00

My RSS feed currently looks like a self-help book. Of special note are Mr Wang's recent articles on regrets in choice of education and excerpts from the ever-inspiring Adrian Tan's commencement speech. Then I read Kenneth's entry on honouring hard choices.

I have this to say.

Life is organic. It takes you in directions you never expect to go. All throughout it you will face choices, directions, paths, routes, sidetracks, railroads and all manner of distractions, subtractions, attractions and simple traction.

I think that the classic dichotomy of "the road commonly travelled" and "the road less travelled" is absolute bollocks, for two reasons. First, it presumes you know the difference between the two as clearly as Robert Frost did. The second is that it assumes that life is nothing but a series of mutually exclusive choices.

(In fact, a bit of searching reveals that "The Road Not Taken" has in fact, two interpretations - one classic-inspirational, the second ironic, and cautioning against hindsight, but I digress)

This is my take - recognise that each decision is a sacrifice, a price for which you have no real price tag for until you've paid it. Know that the future is unknowable. Respect that every man has to make that sacrifice, and pity those who don't recognise that.

***********

I don't make it a secret that my reading law was, in fact, not my first choice. Somehow, though, I've made it work - I recognise that it affords me enough financial and social slack that I can pursue things I truly love. It is a price I gladly pay.

On the other hand, I know that because I pay this price, I pay another, which is the price of dabbling. And, yes, I am a dabbler. I've chose not to afford the time commitments to do what Ilkka or Kenneth or Greg does, because there are other things I want done, and because I pay the price for preserving my independence.

I don't strive for greatness, brilliance or to be remembered, respected or honoured in any way. It is something that other people get to confer on me if they choose to. I don't care if I am average, so long as being average is something I've chosen, not fallen into.

So here I am. I'm an average swordsman, an average lawyer, an average son, and probably a rather average writer as well. I'm glad I'm all of those things because I can't imagine me being one at the expense of the other.

Because I am all those things, I cannot imagine why one would be more important than the other.

Elbows and Wrists

2008-07-28T11:30:00.003+08:00

Recovered from a bout of diarrhea, which explains my lack of updates.

The only training session I attended this week was Wednesday, where we practised First, Third and Ninth Master of Dagger, which brings me to my point of this post.

How does one train accuracy when aiming for the elbows and wrists with hands? With a sword you can do pell work to improve your cutting form, or train opposite a person to train your stroke.

You obviously can't do the same thing with an unarmed frontale because (1) the elbows and wrists are extremely small targets and (2) build and positioning causes this to vary even more than it normally does, in contrast with fendente cuts.

I'm asking this because I can't figure out a good methodology to train this apart from doing it over and over again - and even that seems to provide limited gains because of different sizes of training partners, different positions for hands, wrists and elbows when striking, etc.

Some help anyone?

Syllabus Form

2008-07-10T09:58:00.002+08:00

Given my crappy excuse for a schedule this week, I've resorted to training by myself. This means many many reps of Syllabus Form.

My observations:

There's a very fine balance between thinking of Syllabus Form as a set of responses to attacks, and thinking of Syllabus Form as a 38-step program. The issue is this: thinking of the Syllabus Form as a set of responses makes me artificially panicky, and my form suffers, BUT, if I think of the Syllabus Form as a 38-step program, my form is wonderful, but my flow suffers. I don't think I'm supposed to think of Syllabus Form as either and just execute it, but I've not reached that stage yet where I can execute every move in the Form flawlessly.
I notice that the more I execute Syllabus Form, the sloppier it becomes. I think this is a symptom of a bigger problem - when I get tired (not physically, but bored, distracted etc) my form suffers. I need to keep myself motivated.
There's a weird annoying lag in my footwork, more so than necessary to account for not leading with the face and hands. I don't quite know what's wrong. Maybe it's a familiarity issue.

Comments?

WARNING! RANT INCOMING!

2008-07-09T11:18:00.003+08:00

I am sick of whiny players. No, really, I am.

I do not know what is it about Dungeons and Dragons in particular that brings out the worst in a player, but it does. I am not talking about hack and slash. I can tolerate that.

What I am upset about is how ill-behaved a Dungeons and Dragons player is when a rules call goes against them. Especially where there's a challenging encounter.

Here's the context. It's the last game I'm running for a while. I wanted to pit a young white against a number of new characters. I expected it to be a slaughterhouse. I've communicated it to them that I expect it to be a slaughterhouse, exactly because I know that they are not prepared for this PLUS they've expended resources reaching this point in the game that I thought was a really bad idea. For those in the know, they've expended their dailies.

So this group of experienced players, wanting to win, pull out all the stops. They get fairly creative in trying out new things that are not a part of the game system, which I try to quickly reward by improvising rules.

At the end of the fight (which ends in a slaughter, as predicted), the players start bitching about the rules calls that went against them and ONLY the rules calls that went against them, and that they could have beat the dragon IF the rules calls went their way, not taking into account that:

All throughout the fight, there were rules calls that were clearly wrong but in the players' favour that influenced the fight to their advantage.
I was clearly lenient in favor of creativity, but the bulk of the bitching was in the portion of the improvised rules encouraging creativity.
I get very irritated when someone selects bits of physics and rules to come up with the most advantageous rule set applicable to the situation. You either argue real world physics in its entirety or rulesets in their entirety.
IF I had wanted to make the fight unfair, I'd have had the dragon circle the top of the cavern blasting them with dragon breath after dragon breath once their only ranged attacker had been turned into mush.

Henceforth, I'm going to save myself player aggro and not run Dungeons and Dragons. Ever.

Training in Singapore

2008-07-07T09:31:00.002+08:00

Attended training for the first time since I've returned. Officially anyways. Unofficially, I've been heading to the Botanical Garden and been doing the "plank" as regularly as I can manage - which is to say, irregularly.

The first thing I noticed about going back to do my drills is how cramped I'm perceiving the training space to be. I know that's not correct - our training hall is only slightly smaller than SESH's training hall in Finland. Yet somehow, it feels a lot smaller than it should be. My guess is that it's the line of bags strewn over the sides, and the line of chairs that make things smaller than they need to be.

The second thing I noticed is that my form has suffered during the week - again. Weirdly enough, when Chris and Greg call me out on my mistakes, I tend to know what they are going to say before they even say it. Not breaking structure on the cover for First Remedy of First Master of Dagger, check. Not swinging high enough to be a proper fendente cut, check. Volta Stabile when I'm not supposed to, double check.

It annoys me that I know what I'm supposed to be doing and yet not being able to do it consistently.

On a brighter note, I notice that during training, I'm swinging harder and which more emphasis on proper form. I go down lower on my guard positions and focus more on establishing structure than executing things quickly. I was especially proud when Robin tried to armlock me and didn't manage to. For perspective, Robin is one of the bigger and stronger guys there and his form is usually impeccable.

I also think that there are some endemic mistakes that we make over and over again because we're just so used to them. I'll be focusing on this aspect in training and my own self-training.

RIP Velvetedge

2008-07-04T17:48:00.000+08:00

When I was alone, you were a great comfort to me. You believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. You remembered what I said when no one else even listened.

And now, you are gone. Gone too are my promises to meet up with you, to have those tapas and beers in California when I'd finally get a chance to see you in person.

Farewell, Velvetedge. World of Warcraft seems a much darker place without you.

Home

2008-07-03T09:15:00.002+08:00

Just touched down 2 hours ago.

The news has broken, and I think I can write about this safely now. I've been promoted to full Fellow in PHEMAS. In practical terms that means I've moved from being an intermediate student to one of the more senior students in swordsmanship in one fell swoop.

I share Kenneth's sentiment here - I can only trust that Mr Windsor was not being over-generous with the promotion. In many ways, I feel like I've reached the point where I'm only beginning to grasp the basics, only to have the door open to the wealth of learning ahead.

And boy, what wealth it is.

I feel simultaneously overwhelmed and enlightened. If wisdom is recognizing how little you know, I am feeling incredibly wise now.

More when I get some sleep.

Day 2 of Seminar

2008-06-27T03:11:00.002+08:00

Day 2 of the seminar saw some journalists down at the Salle to film us. Something about living history and that kind of thing.

Today saw a bit of abrazare, a lot of dagger work and some longsword for the crowd. I started the day incredibly low energy, and kind of sleepwalked through a lot of the techniques. My form suffered and it showed. Guy probably noticed as well - came over and corrected me a couple of times.

Second part of the day saw me get my second wind. Did better, got more learning in.

Again, I'm glad that some small but significant matters got corrected:

Apparently my stance is too wide all this while. Guy described it well - if one imagines a square, my feet are occupying opposite corners of the square. This is wrong - it should occupy both corners of the same side of the square. I gain about a foot or two of measure this way.
My pushing has been corrected. Instead of pushing against the chest and shoulders, go for the chin and head instead. When pushing encounters resistance, change the direction of the push. Push in the right place lightly beats pushing in the wrong place strongly.
Structure is all-important. Maintain your structure, break his.

I'm sure Kenneth will have far more insights than I do, but these are the ones I've managed to pick up and hopefully retain. Tomorrow's stuff is probably a dagger round up and sword work. Am going to get an early night to rest up for tomorrow.

String Theory

2008-06-26T13:42:00.003+08:00

I learnt to fight with string today.

Apart from the obvious cool factor of that, I took a lot away from the first day of the seminar in Finland.

Once again, Kenneth goes into the pedagogical and technical aspects of the session; I don't need to belabour the point. I will go more into the personal development dimensions of the seminar.

I start with a somewhat suprising revelation - I may be passionate about the sword, but I am not entirely prepared to give up my life entirely for it. If the others here have a love affair with swordsmanship, I have probably a strong friendship with it.

That said, I've always been most interested in swordsmanship as a personal development tool, and that is what I shall focus on.

Our martial art comes off a 16th century manuscript. Note I do not say "based off" or "derived from" a manuscript. For all intents and purposes it is the same martial art taught off the manuscript - or as close to it as we can get to it. While I have learnt content from the book, I've never learnt it in the order that the book presented. This small difference in the seminar and the way I normally learn it makes a vast difference to me; it allows me a bigger insight into the historical way the martial art is taught and gives the thought processes behind using the martial art more structure. In short, there is value in keeping it real.
There are times where I am tempted to make things up when I don't know something. That is just ego. The irony is, the manuscript itself provides notes on variations, and possible applications. Often what I can make up is far inferior to what has already been provided and thought through by people who have a far more vested interest in the outcomes of these applications. In short, if you don't know something, check it up. Don't make up shit.
In the course of learning this martial art, mistakes creep in. These may be small mistakes like hunching when you should be extending, not raising your arms enough and the such. These small mistakes matter, and happen because the human body is inherently lazy. To make sure your body does things properly, you must train. In short, practice, practice, practice. Don't just think about it.
In the course of practising the martial arts, the simple moves work a lot better than complicated moves. The reason is that the simple can be executed without too much fuss. In the chaos of a fight, a simple move is more likely to be used and executed well than a complicated one. Do not mistake simple for shallow. In short, simplify, simplify, simplify.

That's all for now. Laptop running out of batteries. Will write more after the seminar.

Small Successes

2008-06-25T03:08:00.003+08:00

The trick, as in all things, is with the small things.

Kenneth has written up an awesome series of posts regarding his growing insight into the art of swordsmanship. I will not repeat what he has to write, but suffice to say that much of what he has to write, I agree with.

My current tally in Helsinki is 4 training sessions, two a day. The training and pedagogy is completely alien to me, and yet makes a lot of sense. In it, where I was saw static drills, I now see drills as what they are - training tools. That alone is worth the trip here.

That isn't the only thing that I've learnt though.

My first four lessons here were spent learning basic material again - stuff that I should be proficient in before I got here, but wasn't. Going through the material again under the watchful eyes of Guy is something else. I managed to correct quite a number of things that I've been doing wrong systematically. I don't know whether my form has improved or not - thats for other people to judge, but I feel my movements becoming smoother and less gummed up.

It's with the small successes that I'm developing my insights from. Something as simple as raised hands, a flapping elbow and one fewer step in a drill makes a vast difference in the execution.

I'm also glad I made the time to come down to Helsinki to train. Apart from the opportunity to train, it is also the opportunity to get away from work and life stress. I also got time to spend with people that I don't get enough time with nowadays.

Heading for this retreat made me realise I've got an awful lot of clutter in my life that I would like to cut down. In life the simple things matter. Do them well, invest in them and you get your dividends. Investing in clutter just creates more clutter.

More later when I get the chance to write or when I get home.

Heading to Helsinki

2008-06-21T11:01:00.000+08:00

Be back in a few weeks.

How Do I Go On?

2008-06-20T21:20:00.002+08:00

An anonymous commentator asked me:

"On those days when you were chugging along without being able to find meaning or make any sense of things, how do you make yourself continue?"

That's a good question. I'll share with you a little insight of what I learnt in California.

My first night in California was cold and miserable. I didn't get an ounce of sleep because of jet lag and the fact that I was basically in a sleeping bag on the floor of my rented apartment. I missed home badly. I called home hysterically, and I was in tears.

It wasn't the call home that made me feel better though. It was the resolution I made to myself that night. I promised to make my situation better in small ways, starting by getting a mattress.

The next day, fatigued and jet lagged, I dragged a queen sized mattress home by myself, up a flight of stairs, through a narrow corridor. I must have been desperate.

Every day brought about new improvements. New chairs, new desk, new cable connection, a TV, then a TV stand. Pretty soon, the apartment was nice and comfortable.

You see, meaning is what you make of it. When the big things don't make sense, focus on the small. Sooner or later, when you have accumulated enough small victories, the world reshapes itself around those victories.

************************

I hope I answered your question, Anonymous, especially the one that was unasked but implied. I don't know what works for you, but I've found that plugging your way through a series of minor accomplishments does wonders. Sooner or later, on the back of these minor accomplishments, a major revelation will happen and there, you will find your sense and meaning.

No Story Ever Ends...

2008-06-13T16:08:00.004+08:00

...it merely gives the basis for a new beginning.

Two years back, I worked an unpaid internship for a software company in California. I wrote about my heartache and trials here.

My writings on my unpaid internship:

"Why am I insane enough to do this? The simple answer - I need every break I can get. I've already alluded to the difficulty of getting a visa sponsor. If I do a good job here, maybe, just maybe, word will get around. Besides, I promised almost a year ago that I will do absolutely everything in my power to stay. I'll not break that promise now."

Two years later, I got my break. Just not in the way I expected.

************

I was incredibly surprised when someone I didn't know about wrote dropped me an email. He tracked me down by the blog address I left on LinkedIn, he said. He told me he liked what he saw, and that there were people back in California vouching for me.

People back in California vouching for me, he said.

************

Deep down inside, I've been struggling for the longest time to make sense of what happened, that life-changing experience that got cut short. I thought I buried that part of my life, but I know better. It never leaves you. You just keep chugging along, and one day, inexplicably, it will make sense because you make it make sense. You answer that call from your past, and use it to build your future.

Now, just like then, I'm leaving people behind. This time, though, I know better. I know that the story between us will not end, because no story ever ends. Not unless you let it. I won't let it.

Don't call this an ending. Just another part of the great story we call "life".

First Nuffnang Cheque

2008-05-30T16:05:00.002+08:00

First Nuffnang Cheque. Took me a year to earn enough to cash out. Tells you about my relatively low readership.

Vuestar - Patent Troll?

2008-05-29T16:59:00.004+08:00

Background: Vuestar, a Singapore-held company, has sent out letters of demand to Singapore-based companies, claiming that any image-linking is technology that violates their patents. Unsurprisingly, the blogosphere is up in arms about this, claiming that this is ludicrous.

*********

I'm going to set down some thoughts about this matter. However, I need to set out the following disclaimer.

Yes, I'm a lawyer, but no this is not legal advice or opinion of any sort. Do not rely on this information. If you get a letter of demand, find a patents lawyer and discuss this with him. Please do not ask me for legal help.

*********

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order of importance.

The Vuestar patent (Full text here. HT Ars Technica for the excellent news report.) appears to cover any sort of image-searching and linking. I'm surprised that a patent this wide was granted in Singapore. I am especially surprised because I would have thought this would be obvious, and obviousness kills patents, at least in the US.
Vuestar's website doesn't disclose any business model apart from licensing their IP rights. I'd have thought that there would be some kind of consultancy, software code to license, etc etc, but no, it's just an IP licensing system. This leads me to think that Vuestar is probably a patent troll. (EDIT: They make mention of some products like Trademark Searches and the such, though it's listed under "Products and Emerging Products". Still rather suspicious. I'm not convinced they actually -have- those products for use, or even if they do, that they are commercially exploitable. Smells like a mask for their real intentions.)
Thing is, patent trolling isn't a new problem. This might be the first time that Singapore has experience it on such a large scale but it's fairly common in the US. What happens is that patent trolls use widely-worded, probably-invalid patents to extract license fees. They are generally successful because companies don't want to fight a lawsuit and the cost of the licensing is probably less than the cost of a court challenge. What is even more annoying is that most patent systems rely on challengers to take down invalid patents.
One more complication aiding the success of patent trolls is that commercial contracts often require relevant intellectual property to remain unchallenged and valid. A challenge of any sort generally triggers a mad scramble to settle these disputes out of court rather than risk a lucrative commercial relationship from going sour.
As I understand it, there are reforms going on in US patent law to stop this kind of behaviour. I'm not quite sure how successful they have been.

*********

Fragrant Prince

2008-05-22T10:22:00.003+08:00

For background, click here.

The arrest of Fragrant Prince leaves me with a vague sense of unease. Yes, he is wrong for posting racist comments. Yes, his writing is shallow and self-absorbed. Yes, his ideas are poisonous, and have no place in a civilised society.

Yet, I am still incredibly uncomfortable with the circumstances of his arrest. From what I've read of the comments on Tomorrow.sg and Cowboy Caleb's blog, it's not really his racism that got him in trouble, but his arrogance.

Fragrant Prince didn't help his own case - his apology smacks of the same semantics as DPM Wong Kan Seng's apology for the Mas Selamat affair. "I am sincerely apologetic for the recent events that happen" isn't an apology. Rephrased, it might as well have been "I'm sorry I got caught".

Yes, Fragrant Prince's racist comments was probably criminal. On the other hand, had he been less arrogant and more popular, I think the blogging community would have been more inclined to "give chance" and not report him to the police.

I am not comfortable with this. It is bad enough that the blogosphere goes on the occasional witch-hunt against high-profile targets like Dawn Yang. A police arrest takes this phenomenon to a whole different dimension.

I think that given the circumstances, reporting the arrest was the right thing to do. I am also not defending Fragrant Prince. What I am uncomfortable with are the implications - that popularity might be a pre-screening criteria for justice. That is the inherent flaw of mob justice, and something that I'll write against, be it for Fragrant Prince, Dawn Yang or anyone else.

The Most Powerful Force

2008-05-15T17:26:00.001+08:00

I am a dire wolf, prey-stalking, lethal prowler.

I am a hunter, horse-mounted, wolf-stabbing.

I am a horsefly, horse-stinging, hunter-throwing.

I am a spider, fly-consuming, eight legged.

I am a snake, spider-devouring, poison-toothed.

I am an ox, snake-crushing, heavy-footed.

I am an anthrax, butcher bacterium, warm-life destroying.

I am a world, space-floating, life-nurturing.

I am a nova, all-exploding… planet-cremating.

I am the Universe—all things encompassing, all life embracing.

I am anti-life, the beast of judgement. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds… of everything. Sss. And what will you be then dreamlord?

I am hope.

Hancock

2008-05-14T10:17:00.002+08:00

Funny I should mention superheroes.

This looks like a darned tootin movie to watch.

Singapore's Superhero

2008-05-07T11:16:00.007+08:00

This advert from Nuffnang caught my attention. Write a post about what a Singapore superhero should be, embody, what powers he should have, etc. This contest is sponsored by the Singapore Movie Fiesta.

Word of warning: This post will not be campy or snarky. It will also probably not win the competition for those reasons. Nevertheless, I believe that campy makes character unbelievable and believability is the heart of a superhero. Spiderman wouldn't be interesting if his superhero-life/non-superhero life didn't screw him over every so often. Batman won't be interesting without his obsessions.

Second thing is, I much prefer superheroes in the form of the TV series like "Heroes" and "Smallville" rather than the costumed superheroes in the 1970's.

That, and I don't particularly like the format of a biography - I much prefer narrative.

Anyways, having stated my preferences, and probably described all the reasons my superhero character won't win the competition, here's my 0.02.

******************

There is a gaping wound over Singapore.

Few can see the the raw gash of glowing red hanging above the sky, but all can feel it. It turns the hope of a better tomorrow to a paranoid insecurity. It transforms honest work ethic into an overwhelming lust for consumption. It turns noble protectors into deluded oppressors. It turns virtue to vice, tolerance to ignorance, best intentions into Faustian bargains. It fuels the tiny bits of evil in every Singaporean and turns them into monsters.

It feeds as it is fed.

It grows every time a Singaporean is corrupted. Every time a maid is beaten, a friend is cheated, a half-truth is told on the national paper, the throbbing sky-wound gets just a little larger, a little brighter, a little more alive.

Singapore needs a hero. It has one.

Jimmy Lee wears no spandex. He wears his favourite wash-worn demin, along with a 10-dollar Giordano T-Shirt. He has no underground cave liar in Xiao Gui Lin - property prices in Singapore are insane enough without having to take out a second mortgage. He is no billionaire dilettante - he works at a tuition agency, trying to put his NIE Degree in Education to use. He has no Kansas-Farmboy good looks, nor dashing Creole accent, nor muscle-bound body - his face is too rough to be handsome, and his build too gangly to inspire schoolgirl dreams.

How can such an unlikely person be a superhero? That is what Jimmy asked himself too when his Eye appeared.

Like all other Singaporeans, Jimmy never expected to be taken in by a "magic stone" salesman. He expected to be smarter than that, with his cosmopolitan outlook and street smarts. He also never expected to develop a blood clot in the brain at the tender age of 27.

Too many blows to the head, the doctor said. Jimmy disagreed. While he professed a love for sports, and occasionally indulged in Tae Kwon Do sparring, he never sparred without safety gear. The blood clot was a mystery, but one that was slowly robbing his health. He had completely lost feeling in the tips of his fingers, and the vision in his left eye by the time he meet the snake-oil salesman.

To this day, Jimmy had no idea what possessed him to boil the stone, and consume the three 1.5 liter bottles of bright green stone distillate. What he does remember is waking up and seeing that his left eye had turned glowing green, and that the sky had a terrible wounding that bled red light.

He had recovered that day, of course. The doctor gave him a squeaky clean bill of health, and expressed surprise that even old tissue damage seems to have disappeared. The doctor never saw the glowing green eye. No one could. Just like no one could see that awful red glow.

Jimmy knew he was going to say that. He saw it in his glowing green left eye. He also saw that the doctor was having an affair with three nurses in the hospital, and that his wife had found out. Most of all, he saw that awful red glow in the doctor, ready to harvest the bitter fruit.

He saw the futures too.

Jimmy saw the first future, where the doctor returned, hurled abuse at his wife, then leave with a pre-packed bag. The wife died in that future. Tore her veins open with a razor and bled to death.

Jimmy saw the second, fainter future, the one which would happen if he confronted the doctor with what he knew now. He saw the doctor confess to his wife, honestly and sincerely, change over a new leaf, and live twenty years of marriage.

Jimmy didn't hesitate.

************

Since that day, Jimmy has been pulled from event to event, person to person, fighting the awful red glow and its corruption. He has been shot, stabbed, burnt and beaten, but every single time the wounds never lasted longer than 23 minutes. He's leapt over 8 meter fences, out-wrestled three sailors at Boat Quay, and outran the 171 bus to town. Jimmy's second lease of life also granted him some remarkable physical capabilities.

Yet, Jimmy's signature ability remains the Eye that Sees All. Every so often, the Eye reveals to him a person, one special person who is at the threshold of making a decision that will change a life. The Eye reveals to Dennis the greatest power of all - the power of a second chance, like the one he was given.

Perhaps, with enough second chances, Singapore can be saved from itself.

****************

Editor's notes: Some things don't convey well in narrative, so I'm putting them down here as notes.

My conception of Jimmy comes from what I see as two central definitions of Singapore:

The idea that Singapore is a victim of the Law of Unintended Consequence; and
the idea that Singapore is all about second chances.

Yes, Singapore has become very successful but for every action that it takes at success, it creates an kink for itself into the future. Think of the 2-child policy, for example.

What Singapore tends to forget, however, is that it is all about second chances. Our forefathers came to Singapore escaping political and economic persecution, for large part. Our own independence was centered around our seperation from the Malaysian Federation.

Given these two ideas, I think a uniquely Singaporean superhero would embody both these concepts. What if we could get a glimpse of what would really happen? Would it give us just that little push into making things right, doing things better, by getting that second chance?

I don't know, but through Jimmy I'd like to have the opportunity to find out.

Awesome Posts

2008-05-06T12:05:00.002+08:00

I recently (meaning just last year) discovered the joys of the Penny Arcade forum.

Just a sample of the awesome posts found there.

Trowzilla said:

This was, of course, the exact moment my parents chose to have a long, involved talk with me about my grades. In the kitchen. With me holding a cucumber that had very recently been used for terrible, terrible purposes.

Another Trowzilla story:

I'd discovered fanfic as an endless, free source of kinky porn that I could print out and hide in my room, and while I figured a lot of it wasn't too realistic, I had no idea of how much. Anyway, so I'd found this Sailor Moon (shut up!) tentacle porn fic that really got me turned on, and while obviously I couldn't replicate tentacles, I figured I'd try out the other major element in the story: hot wax.

I agree with Scrublet's description of American Idol here:

The fact that it's so popular magnifies its shit quotient, such that even though it may not be the most vile shit, it's still the biggest. Sort of like how a massive 2-pound turd spawned from eating an entire loaf of bread would be greater, though far less objectionable, than the comparatively dainty 8-ounce calamity that results from downing an excess of Indian curry.

Have fun!

Angry Thoughts

2008-04-29T16:17:00.003+08:00

What is the collective noun for idiots?

A flock of fools? A murder of morons? A star of simpletons?

Good lords, they just seem to multiply.

*********

What am I supposed to think when the only time you approach my family is for money? I had told you years ago that I do not support what you are doing already. Don't expect kindness when you have paid me and mine nothing but cruelty.

*********

What am I supposed to think? On one hand you've shown me kindness. On the other hand, you've delivered far less than what you've promised. How can you expect me not to be upset?

*********

What's wrong with them?! Can't they see that they are only rewarding short-term behaviour? What about those energy consumers that have consistently been using energy below the median? Is there no reward for the consistently responsible?!

(HT to Mr Miyagi)

*********

ANGRY!!

I Cry Defiance

2008-04-25T15:37:00.004+08:00

You are my senior. You have only to ask, and I will follow.

Be careful what you ask for.

You can ask me to hurry up. You can take things easy. You cannot expect me to hurry while you take things easy. If I run, you run. If you walk, I walk. If I turn around and not see the baton there waiting in my hand, don't expect me to continue running.

You can ask me to hurry up. You can ask me to double check your work. You cannot ask me to hurry up while having to double check your work. If you want me to hurry up, I have to be able that trust you will do your job. I cannot hurry while doing my job and your job at the same time.

You can trust my judgment. You can question my judgment. You cannot cherry-pick which parts of my judgment to trust. My judgment is rendered in its entirety, after considering all the aspects in totality. My judgment is not rendered for your convenience, but your best interests. You take it, good with the bad, or you reject it outright for its flaws.

You can act in good faith. You can keep your power. You cannot keep your power while pretending to act in good faith. That is either hypocrisy or denial, neither of which I condone.

You can ask me to be detached. You can ask me to be loyal. You cannot ask me to be detached while being loyal. Detachment means I feel nothing for you, even loyalty. Detachment requires that I not be here, under-appreciated for what I do. I've given up greener pastures for my loyalty. Don't expect me to feel nothing for what I've given up.

Choose.

Doors or Walls?

2008-04-17T11:12:00.002+08:00

If your past comes knocking on your door, would you open the door?

Everyone has a past that hurts. It seems de rigeur these days. The question is not whether you should let it affect you. It will affect you. It will sneak up on you. It will ambush your sleep, and turn your dreams sour. It will pop up in your email box one day, in a place and form you least expect.

There's a reason I don't write about my current relationship(s), or lack thereof. It's because that part of me still hurts - and it hurts more because I've immortalised it on this blog without intending to.

*******

I received an email today, from a person I've never heard of, claiming acquaintance with someone who helped me a lot in California. When I received the email, I didn't know quite how to respond. Some part of me wanted very much to leave this door unopened.

This is the part of me that remembers that no matter how much I love California, it will be inextricably tied to the greatest pain I've faced in my life.

Another part of me wanted to see what lay beyond the door. This is the part of me that wants to see what it is I left behind in California, a glimpse at the life behind I left when I made my decision to stay in Singapore.

I emailed that person back. I don't know if that was the right choice. Time will tell.

*******

Deciding whether or not to go through that door isn't a rational decision. A rational decision is based on sufficiency of information. Truth is, you don't really know what's behind that door. You have an idea. You have a best guess. But it remains a guess, no matter how good you are.

Behind that door could be a monster, a blank wall, or a treasure beyond compare. More often than not, it opens up to a corridor with another door at the end of it. And then, you stand at the threshold again, wondering the same thing you did the previous time, because you are only human.

The question is not whether to open the door. The question is whether you can live with yourself after.

In the end, that is all that matters.

If

2008-04-02T14:27:00.003+08:00

If you are making millions, you better be good for something.

If what you are good at is getting other people to pay for your millions, you better make sure that the other people get what they are paying for.

If you getting millions, making other people pay for your millions, and not giving us solutions even a citizen can suggest, then really, you aren't being joked about. You are the Joke.

***********

If you like hot nurses, you're a hot-blooded male.

If you like hot nurses appearing out of nowhere on the Internet, your hot blood probably just fried your brain out temporarily.

If you like hot nurses appearing out of nowhere on the Internet who is suddenly very interested in getting it on with someone, then really, the joke's on you.

***********

If you are happy for someone hooking up, you're probably compassionate. Or kay-poh. Whatever.

If you're happy for someone for maybe-hooking-up-but-you're-not-very-sure, you're probably very compassionate. Or very kay-poh. Whatever.

If you don't understand what the heck just happened, but are happy anyway, join the club. You're probably compassionate and kay-poh like me. The joke's on you. If it is a joke. Or not. Whatever.

***********

If you were worried that Questionable Content got hacked, you didn't realise it was April Fool's Day.

If you were worried that Questionable Content AND XKCD both got hacked, you probably didn't realise this is 2008 either.

If you were worried that Questionable Content AND XKCD both got hacked AND wondering where to get the new Axe peripheral for the Bard Hero class in World of Warcraft, you need to get out. Really. See that shiny bright thing in the sky? It's called a sun.

***********

There ends my round-up of the best April Fool's pranks and stunts online. Have fun all.

Returns

2008-04-01T11:26:00.002+08:00

No, not income tax.

The end of March brings me many happy returns. I've returned to training after a one-month hiatus. I've returned to my 9-to-5 job, and won't be travelling (I hope) until the end of April. More importantly, I've returned to a routine where I can spend time with my various groups of friends. And of course, I return to blogging.

The fact that I've taken such a long hiatus is telling. My armour is developing large patches of rust and will need to be cleaned out. My swordfighting stamina has reduced, but suprisingly my legs seem to have strengthened from all that walking around. I seem to be landing a bit more lightly on my feet. On the minus side, my sword work has gone to absolute bullocks. Looks like the rust affected more than just my armour.

The craziness of returning to work in the middle of financial year-end closing also seems to have died down. Interesting developments career-wise, which bode well for me.

I've also gone back to WoWing semi-regularly. Things are a lot more relaxed this time round, without the frenzy of wanting to do everything and the kitchen sink.

Also hanging out with my friends more - I don't get a chance like that every part of the year so best enjoy it while I can.

No angst, no anger, no drama, just a flow of little things that make me happy. I can't ask for more really.

Images from Tokyo

2008-03-20T10:14:00.006+08:00

Some photos on my trip to Tokyo

This was a family having their traditional Japanese Wedding at the Meiji Shrine, near Harajuku. They were one of three families that day having a wedding. The kimono looked awesome.

I missed sakura season, but I definitely didn't miss plum flower season. I think these were taken in Shinjuku Gyoyen, but I can't quite remember - I just saw so many of them.

An awesome cityscape picture of the Shibuya district. The shopping scene is awesome there. I'm told the clubbing is also awesome but I didn't go.

Performers at Yoyogi Park. These drummers are damn awesome - I saw taiko drums being used alongside cowbells and african drums. Hypnotic rhythm.

At the Tokyo Anime Center with some of my favourite anime characters. On a side rant, I got the coat and hat in Tokyo.

Me beside the Big Bad Wolf. 'Nuff said.

Was suprised that the Free Hug movement went as far as Tokyo. This was the second group I saw - the first was at Hachiko near Shibuya.

Some modestly dressed Harajuku youths. I use the word "modestly" quite carefully. There were many many more gothic lolitas and punk rockers there.

Kabuchiko - Tokyo's red light district, as shown from a safe distance.

More when I have time to post them.

Back from Japan

2008-03-18T10:34:00.001+08:00

Have many photos to load up so please be patient.

On other news, I've finally cashed out my first Nuffnang payment! Yay me.

Live from Tokyo

2008-03-04T20:46:00.002+08:00

Am blogging from my teeny hotel room in Tokyo. Had some yummy udon for lunch. Turns out that eating out in Tokyo isn't going to be as much of a problem as I originally thought.

Be back in a few days!

Wow. Just....wow.

2008-02-29T11:53:00.002+08:00

I thought I had it bad. This guy had it worse. Much much worse. I don't think there's a word in the English language that can describe how bad this is.

Of all the responses Ms Cleri gave, I found the last one the most heinous. I cannot believe the depth of self-delusion in that last statement.

I hope that money was worth it.

Why Ban Legos?

2008-02-22T10:40:00.002+08:00

This is an awesome article on the nature of power, social inequity and human relationships, as explored through the eyes of kids playing with Lego.

The article hit closer to home than I'd care to admit. Read it, and see if any particular country comes to mind.

123 Meme

2008-02-20T21:43:00.003+08:00

Tagged by a friend.

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

=============

I'm reading "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" concurrently with "Academ's Fury". I picked the former to quote from.

********

"My chief problem", explained Lord Castlereagh, "is in finding men for the Army - a quite impossible task, I assure you; the British are a perculiarly unmilitary race. But I have my eye on Lincolnshire; I am told the pigs in Lincolnshire are particularly fine and by eating them the population grows very stout and strong. Now what would suit me best would be a general spell cast over Lincolnshire so that three or four thousand young men would all at once be filled with a lively desire to become soldiers and fight the French."

********

I tag:

Tym
TheDisappearingMan
Tome
Gloria
Albrecht Morningblade

The Guy

2008-02-20T09:32:00.002+08:00

Guy Windsor (the dude in the center) took us for an incredibly intense 2-day weapons workshop last weekend. He's the head of our sister school SESH, and is the one who taught our instructors. He's also written the book on what I think is the definitive interpretation of Fiore's techniques.

Needless to say, we've learnt a lot from him. I'm not sure I can actually do his teaching full justice in this short blog post but I will try.

While Fiore's manual (the primary source of our art) focuses on describing forms and techniques, there are several internally consistent principles in the manual.
These principles can be applied to any weapon, as it involves the majority of cutting, thrusting and smashing, along with principles of wrestling, measure (effective range of the weapon), passing (or positioning), and grounding.
There are specific peculiarities for each weapon. A spear is the archetype for thrusting attacks, so the emphasis here should be on exchanging and breaking thrusts. It is not so good for smashing or swinging attacks, in contrast with a pollaxe or sword.
Each guard has permissible actions and defenses that are natural to that guard. By learning what is permissible and natural from that guard position, one can somewhat predict what is coming and how to counter it.

It was clear to me that I needed to do more reading. As such, I've endeavoured to start reading more into the actual source material, or at the very least, the translated versions of it. I've already started reading some of the notes Guy has published, though I'm not making much progress for it. Still, I endeavour to plough through it.

Some further training notes.

I need to get my core muscles working. Guy has showed us a couple of simple body resistance exercises to condition the back and abs. Once I get over this bout of illness I'll work it into my life schedule. I think those are incredibly useful.
I still need to work on my stress reflexes. I can execute the forms Guy taught okay, but I've noticed that in a stress situation I tend to panic and forget everything. This means more drilling for me.
Guy noticed that I tend to backweight my en guarde position, which is absolutely correct. I'll need to correct this. I need to find a comfortable spot to settle my hips.
On the bright side, I think my volta stabile has improved somewhat by keeping in mind not to turn with the shoulders, but the entire body. I can -feel- the improvement in smoothness.

My great thanks to Guy Windsor, who made time to come down and kick our asses out of complacency.

Alan Moore - Comic Badass

2008-02-15T12:01:00.002+08:00

Seen on Something Positive:

"Little Known Alan Moore Fact: He got his amazing writing skills from the Devil - not by selling his soul but by beating Satan up daily for his lunch money until the Devil bribed Moore with genius just to leave him alone."

Salut!

Gong Xi Fa Cai

2008-02-06T18:11:00.001+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year to all my readers!

Little Steps

2008-02-01T12:43:00.000+08:00

In art, as in life, your path is often dictated by fundamentals and little steps.

I've written at length about my training issues. After some consultation with Greg and some very wise input from Illka, I've realised that what I am experiencing is simply that my fundamentals were not strong.

Take for example, footwork. Of all the training I've gone through, footwork is the most boring. Yet, so much depends on it. Your distance judgment is based on how consistent you can keep your footwork. Your stability is determined by how solid your footwork is. Your defense is determined by being in the right position at the right time, and that is largely a function of footwork.

Specifically, my footwork suffers because:

When I take a step forward, I stop prematurely, causing my body to jerk forward. The reason for this is that when I move forward, I don't commit to shifting my weight to the forward foot until the very last moment. The sudden rush of forces from this weight transition forces my forward foot to act as a brake, which causes it to stutter. Furthermore, because I'm not comitting to moving forward, the reach of my front foot tends to be shorter than it would otherwise be, aggravating the "stutter". Solution - practice transitioning my weight better. This will cure two of my 5 issues which is the inability to change direction and the inability to range properly.
When I turn, I lead my turn with my shoulders. I know a volta stabile is supposed to be powered from the hip. What I am doing, however, is rotating the shoulder first, to a point where my hips lock, then turning my hips. In that sense, I am overthrowing my shoulder. Solution - I need to work on shifting my weight smoothly from foot to foot, powering the transition with my hip and not my shoulder.

Two very small, almost undetectable mistakes fouled up my footwork. I will work to correct them.

*************

There is a life lesson in this. Very often, it's not the big things that will drive you down, but the small things. A mispelt word can ruin an otherwise polished piece of writing. A misplaced number will ruin accounts.

As in all things, there is no controlling the number and frequency in which a million small things will occur in life. However, what can be done is to control the extent of which these things affect you. We can do so by:

being honest with ourselves. We should not have overinflated senses of self, because we wouldn't notice these small creeping errors. Likewise, running yourself down for small mistakes is just as harmful - if your time and attention is on the defensive, you'll never progress, which brings me to....
Set goals. Mr Wang has written several times about the importance of setting goals - a person who doesn't set a goal fails 100% of the time. I agree with him. I will also add, setting goals allows you to....
Focus on your goal. On top of being sure what you want, you also need to keep your eye on the goal. Small things can detract from this in two ways, as distractions or as flaws in your fundamentals. The former should be ignored, the latter worked on. Either way, the only way to recognise the difference between the two is to understand what you want and to head towards it in a focused manner.

***********

I used to be doing swordsmanship as therapy for loss. It's long since outgrown its original purpose. I want to do swordsmanship now because it's a part of me. In growing my skill with swordsmanship, it causes me to grow too. It's also a wonderful tool for me to understand the interaction between my internal universe and the universe around me.

With this in mind, I can go forward.

Hope, Love, Pragmatism and Barack Obama

2008-01-30T13:12:00.000+08:00

I've been thinking a lot on hope recently, especially Barack Obama's message of hope, of unifying a deeply divided nation, of not doing things the same way with the same mindset.

I've begin to wonder if Singapore had gotten it all wrong.

I've been thinking of the 27 girls and the principal that has asked for them to leave the school in hopes of not pulling down the overall grade of the school. What a blow it must be to the girls! I do not wish to rehash the opinions of other bloggers on this issue. What I do wish to do is to abstract this a bit further.

We are familiar with the Singapore Mindset: Practicality above all, survival as the primary consideration. Survival requires us to make hard decisions. Practicality drives these decisions. There is no room for dreams, compromise, or hope. Winning the game must dominate all.

Is this correct?

I look back on Singapore's history, often cited as an economic miracle of proper governance, and of making hard decisions to survive. We did what we had to, and we did it well. We adopted a hard-nosed pragmatic mindset to survive, and we've done well. We've kept to it till this day.

Why is it, then, that while keeping this pragmatic mindset, we as Singaporeans have become increasingly dissatisfied with pragmatism? What has actually changed? I suspect it may be that we've forgotten that hope and pragmatism aren't always enemies.

We have forgotten that what drove Singapore during its early independence was not just the goal of feeding mouths and putting roofs over our heads. It was also the hope that there would be better days ahead, that what we would suffer for now would ultimately be repaid to us tenfold.

That was the difference. That was all the difference.

Yesterday, I read the Barack Obama has gotten the Kennedy family's endorsement, not because he had the best policies, or the greatest chance of putting them into action. He obtained it because he is slowly teaching a nation how to hope again.

********

In the recent past, I spoke to a friend of mine, troubled with love problems. Her problem was simply this: she did not want to enter into love again without some assurance that it would work out. I found this an entirely rational response and completely unwise.

My response is simply this - if both sides do what is rational, love will never happen because each side is treating each other at arm's length waiting for something to happen. The only way for something to happen is to break the deadlock, do the irrational, take the leap of faith.

In that sense, is it ultimately pragmatic to lose love or to gain love? I don't know, but I do know that equal parts of pragmatism and hope ultimately worked better than mere pragmatism.

As far as I know, my friend and her current beau are still happy together.

*********

The Singapore Mindset has permeated all aspects of our culture. Pragmatism above all. In truth, I have nothing against pragmatism. It is the exclusion of hope that I fear.

We need hope. We must have hope. History has shown time and time again what men without hope do. Hope curdles easily into desperation. The lack of hope turns easily into despair. Yet, for such a fragile thing, hope remains eminently persistent, for no one can give or take away hope, only displayed as an fine light in hope that others will follow.

I hope. Do you?

Starting Over

2008-01-28T15:12:00.001+08:00

I feel my one-month absence from training.

Yesterday's training was very much about easing back. I don't think I did badly, apart from a moment where I was seeing stars after wrestling. My shoulder muscles have shrunk, my paunch is returning, but my CV is somehow better - I attribute that to all the walking and running around I did during NS.

My load-bearing doesn't seem to have suffered. Then again I wasn't wearing my full armour. That being said, I think my wind has improved and it's translated into more willingness to press the attack. I also tried out a few other things that I otherwise wouldn't have done, which suits me just fine.

My pivoting seems to have deteriorated and my sword is all over the place - evidence that continuous practice is the best way of maintaining form.

That's all to report for now. I am still chewing over some aspects of my training but I feel it's a bit premature to write them down. Suffice to say, I'm thinking hard on the comments that have been left on my blog - especially Illka's comments about yielding only to superior pressure.

*****

I also seem to have developed a congestion in my chest area. I feel laboured when I breathe and a slight cough seems to be developing. I have no phlegm though. I suspect it's the warm weather conditioning I acquired in NS conflicting with the air-con environment.

Apart from this, I don't quite feel 100% psychologically. I feel much better after training though, so I think it might just be a function of venting aggression and frustration from NS.

Returned to Sender

2008-01-21T08:15:00.000+08:00

I'm back from ICT.

Many many weird things happened. I'm certain I cannot speak of any of these events. All I can and will say is...I'm appalled at the depths of which SAF officers will sink to protect their careers.

Having lost the first three weeks of the year, I'm now in an odd time warp where I'm slowly adapting to the new work year while the new work year seems studiously intent on avoiding me.

In other news, I've not been to training since the year started. I'm going on Sunday, for sure, and I have a lot to think about with regards to swordsmanship.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T08:22:00.000+08:00

Am heading off for national service on the 3rd. Will be blog once I get back.

Updates

2007-12-27T10:46:00.000+08:00

I've begun training as a senior now, and I'm glad for it. I've rectified at least one issue - the issue of standing straight and not bending over. I tried maintaining it for the length of at least 2 free spars, and my back aches a lot less after training, so I must be doing something right.

I'm also learning more new drills, for which I'm very thankful. Lately, my attacks and defenses seem very much the variations of the same theme - long frontale, yield-to-counter, grab if they come close. Doing 5th drill and 1st drill for the first time opened my eyes to the possibility of strato deflects and pushes, along with fenestra "oh-shit" defenses.

I'm also very thankful for the fact that I'm alive and unhurt after a two-foot piece of steel hurtled past me. No further details needed.

I'm also glad for having spent time with my loved ones, friends and drinking buddies, ate like a pig, and for SAF's E-Mart purchases that comes with home delivery, so I don't have to skulk around Clementi Camp for the shit I need.

All in all, a wonderful and fruitful holiday season. I hope you've had the same.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2007-12-24T13:33:00.000+08:00

Wishing my readers a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Training Issues

2007-12-13T10:36:00.000+08:00

I made it past the recent evaluations but I felt like I didn't really deserve it.

My current complaints? A whole host. I feel like I know what the issues are but I haven't the faintest clue about how to get around them. I'll list them down - if anyone has any ideas from their own experience with martial arts and competitive sports, I'm very willing to listen.

I'm suffering from a power blockage at the hip area, where my leg joint connects to my hip bone. What I mean by "power blockage" is that when I rotate my hips, I am unable to transfer the power from my hips to my upper body smoothly. The end result is that I end up very reliant on shoulder and upper body strength. It gets me to a point, but I'm feeling the inadequacies of this technique already. I think this is a result of my extreme lack of flexibility but I'm not sure.
My footwork needs work. I tend to step from the heel rather than stepping from the balls of my feet. It's gotten slightly better but I'm still by no means consistent with that.
I can't help but to think I'm picking up bad form from stress training. I'm not sure what basis I have for this statement, but I feel it happening when I do drills - I tend to want to punch a guys face in rather than concentrate on what works for the drill. In short, I've not made the transition from connecting "executing proper form" to "winning" yet.
I tend to hunch my shoulders and lean forward to get those extra 2-3 inches of range, but at the cost of being able to balance well. It's a bad habit and I'm looking to break it because of the strain it causes my lower back and shoulders, not to mention wrecking havoc with my form. I think that it's a combination of breaking in new armour and my brain cross-firing saber and longsword techniques.
There's a point I get to where I'm VERY unwilling to go faster. I -think- I can go faster but I've never tried going faster. The reason for this is that I associate speed with losing control, and losing control with injuries. I'm deathly afraid of causing someone else injuries. This has related issues as well - I freak out mentally whenever I train techniques I -know- are meant to injure or kill, like drawing the sword across a human body. I'm not sure how I can get around that, or if it's just an issue of desensitization.

I think the focus for the new year for me should be (1) more flexibility exercises and stretching (2) more focus on form and less on stress training and (3) learning to stand up straight.

Word of the Day III

2007-12-06T16:02:00.000+08:00

Convenience

the quality of being suitable, useful or convenient
anything that makes for an easier life
a convenient time, especially in the phrase at one's convenience
(mostly UK) a public toilet

Conversations with fellow corvidae lead to strange thoughts, especially when one speaks to others later in the week.

A conversation later in the week spun forth additional vectors of thought that I now seek to bind into runes. Context is everything in my craft, but I fear I may only present part-context in this case. Suffice it to say, the word of the day is in the context of romantic relationships.

For a word that is of fairly common usage, I find it damnably difficult to bind the various vectors in my thoughts into a useable form. The problem I face is that convenience is itself a mutable concept.

Would one enter into a relationship of convenience? The intuitive answer is both no and yes - "no" because no one wants to be the object of convenience, "yes" because, well, what else is a relationship but a coincidence of the right emotions, at the right place and time?

On further probing, I realise that the problem is not that the vectors cannot be bound, but just that the vectors are individual. I can abstract to the point where all individual concepts containing convenience can be bound, but in doing so, I bind a lot of non-related concepts alongside it. I can bind the vectors I am aware of individual, but that rune would only function for myself.

In short, I can bind them, but to do so would not be convenient.

Eternal Hoodlums

2007-12-04T14:02:00.000+08:00

Warning: My apologies in advance. Unlike my usual musings, this is deliberately written to conceal the identities of those involved. My reasons are my own.

I lunched today with some old friends, Alchemist, Morningblade and Strider. I've lunched with them individually over the course of the year I was back, of course, but it's literally been decades since I've lunched with all of them at once.

Lunch conversation was surprisingly light on reminiscing, given that this was the group I've learnt virtually all of my knowledge of the mystical arts from. As Alchemist puts it, individually, we are already quite scary, but we also taught tricks to one another.

Among us, Alchemist is the master transmuter. He is entirely gifted in most forms of the Craft, but chief among his gifts are divination, synthesis and transformation. His skill in the transformation of other people's gifts to unexpected forms and functions is especially noteworthy.

Morningblade is a master enchanter. His skills lie in the art of beguilement, deception, illusion and truth. It sounds entirely contradictory until one understands that only through the mastery of truth for truth's sake can one start mastering his art. Like me, he too is a swordsman. Though I've often criticised his chosen sword form for the lack of dimension, the fact remains that he was once my teacher in the arts of the blade.

Strider, my brother, is a master nullifier and numeromancer. His art is to find truth through complex linear forms. Through such forms he is also able to resist, nullify, and curiously enough, enable through the nullification of nullification. Though we are blood, the directions our Craft has taken is completely different. Strider possesses the most curious ability to work his Craft without noise or motion, something I've never been able to master.

I am the master evoker and runesmith. My truth is intuitive, direct and often without form, and needs to be bound with the use of symbols. The effects of my truth often deal in extreme high or low energy states in geometric (not necessarily Euclidian) shapes. Mine is the power to impart, alter or cease motion vectors.

Four forms, but always one truth. How I missed them.

Closing a Chapter

2007-11-29T09:14:00.000+08:00

I've often wondered what the phrase "closing a chapter" actually means, in the context of life.

Unlike the pages of a storybook, life isn't sorted into neat little bundles of narrative, where events happen sequentially. Unlike prose, there is no discernible main plot and subplot to life, no protagonists, no antagonists, no foreshadowing, no metaphor beyond what the interpreter of life chooses to impose.

Where does that leave Pan Narren's, the storytelling ape?

I'm glad my friend has sorted out his issues. It's been such a long time. To be frank, I don't even miss the money anymore, because I've long since given up hope on it. I'm just glad that he's sorted himself out.

I wonder now, as I've wondered a lot in the past year, whether the money would have honestly made a difference. I don't know, but the speculation drives me fretful. I still wonder to this day, if I was able to make a difference, would I have made that different choice? Would I have avoided the pain, knowing that doing so I would give up the wonderful life I have now?

Life isn't a narrative. I can't flip the pages back, because I don't have any pages to flip back. I can't look forward and skip to the ending. All I can do is to live my life as best as I can.

In that sense at least, perhaps I can "close" this "chapter" with some dignity. Best wishes, old friend, and know that you mean a lot to me still.

Everything I Know about Leadership....

2007-11-22T13:55:00.000+08:00

.....I learnt from Optimus Prime. Old School man, Old School.

If Prosperity is so Important....

2007-11-15T16:47:00.000+08:00

...why not go the whole hog?

I think I've been reading too many "Freakonomics" and "The Undercover Economist" type books recently. The latest in the series is "More Sex is Better Sex" where the author proposes certain improvements to our justice system. In the appendix of the book, he notes that David Friedman makes an even more radical proposal - that there should be many competing "microsystems" of justice as possible, with individuals subscribing to whichever justice system they prefer.

I say we go one step further.

If economic prosperity, minister performance and politics are so intertwined, I say we go the whole hog and allow a plutocracy in the truest sense of the word. Some points are:

Everyone casts a DOLLAR vote for the candidate they want in power. Top 84 nominees takes all.
All monies will be paid to a central depository. Electors can deposit cash any time they wish. Elections are triggered whenever the pot hits 10 million, and electors have 1 month where they can deposit monies from the day the pot hits 10 million.
The winners of the vote has to fork out the cash. This cash goes to the people who have voted, equal to the amount they were willing to fork out.
The excess in the pot goes to the lowest, I dunno, 10th percentile in terms of income.
NONE of the money involved in this transaction will be taxable. Ever.
MP's and Ministers get no cash pay. Instead, they get a basket of properties reflecting the overall economic prosperity of the country.
Anyone becoming an MP and Minister must disclose all financial interests for the period they remain as MP's.

I sounds incredibly chaotic, but there's an elegance to what I'm proposing. What the system essentially does is to turn government over to the highest bidder. If no one likes the government, they can always be overthrown when the pot hits 10 million - which is a really small sum.

To maintain power, one must always be leeched of money to the lowest 10%, which will eventually accumulate enough to vote credibly as a collective body. Furthermore, to maintain power, one cannot just please the ultra-rich, cos a sufficiently big pool of middle class people will be sufficient to trigger an election.

The idea here is that you don't derive ANY benefit from being in government apart from your ability to make the economy grow. In short, you -will- be putting your money where your mouth is. If you can make the economy grow bigger than the money you've forked out, congrats - you've enriched yourself and everyone else in the process. If you can't, someone else will raise the 10 mil and overthrow you.

So, what do you think?

Hierakonpolis

2007-11-13T13:39:00.000+08:00

Home of history's first recorded zombie attack.