Loki's blog

Got this form Paulo Coelho's blog:

Number 7 Life is sexually transmitted. Number 6 Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. Number 5 Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich. Number 4 Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks. Number 3 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. Number 2 All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism. Number 1 In the ’60’s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

These are interesting takes on life; quite true too. Do you agree? Hmm...Right now, I'm hungry. Hahahaha!

Originally from this site but it went down for some time.  Anyway, here it is the article just in case it goes down again:

Moscow: 10-yr-old commits suicide after parental ban on computer games A 10-year-old school boy committed suicide by jumping from his 19th floor apartment here after his parents banned him from playing computer games. Andrei Smirnov, a class three student, jumped to his death yesterday after receiving the wrath of his parents due to bad conduct in school and a poor performance in studies. The boy's class teacher had written remarks about his bad conduct in the school diary which he had tried to erase to escape the wrath of his parents, according to Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid. Angered by the teacher's remarks and their son's attempt to deceive them, Andrei's parents banned him from playing games on his computer. Local experts here have expressed concern over the unhealthy dependence of children on computers. According to Director of Centre for Legal Psychological Assistance Mikhail Vinogradov, children who are banned from using their computers could easily resort to suicide, since they do not realise the consequences of taking the extreme step. Comment: The child was banned from playing computer games and took his life. As parents and as societies, do we provide our children with reasons to live for, for oppurtunities to be creative and enhance their self-worth, their self esteem? The answer for the vast majority unfortunately, is No. It is the price all humans pay under pathocracy, since some of its characteristics are the 1. suppression of individualism and creativity 2. impoverishment of artistic values 3. impoverishment of moral values; a social structure based on self-interest and one-upmanship, rather than altruism. And make no mistake. The world currently is ruled by pathocrats.

The comment attached to the article is worth noting.  Is the cause of his suicide really dependence over computers? Why? Computer games are like TV shows, movies or books.  They provide entertainment, may tell stories, and give simulated experiences that may never be possible in real life.  Aside from being 'time wasters' and stress relievers (well, there are also games that are just so frustrating that they cause stress...hahahahaha!), they are also a form of escape from the real world.  One can't drive at 2000+ km/h in real life but it can be done in computer games.  The same can be said with many other illegal acts done in the virtual world.  At the end of the day, nobody gets hurt until a kid brings a real gun to school. I digress. Was it that the kid found a better life in video games than in the real world? If he was addicted, what drove his addiction this far? Can society provide the "anti-drug" to the addiction?

Throw an egg straight up into the air. What will you do after?

1. Step aside and watch the egg go to waste.
2. Do nothing and let the egg break on you.
3. Let someone else catch it. You realize that everyone else has their own egg to catch. (go to 1, 2 or 4.6)
4. Try to catch the egg.
   1. But fail because you did not practice catching an egg.
   2. Try to practice catching an egg but take too much time (go to 1, 2 or 4.5)
   3. Try to practice catching an egg but you realize that you threw the egg too low (go to 1 or 2)
   4. Practice a little and succeed. Cook the egg and eat it after.
   5. Catch the egg in a pan, take out the egg shell, cook the egg and eat it.
   6. You wait for too long and fumbled with the egg. Egg breaks on you/ground
5. Egg doesn't fall. Scenario fails. But seriously, this doesn't happen now, does it? (go to 4.6)

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Is the glass half empty or half full?

It isn't unusual to hear quotes or people telling me that you must be satisfied with what I have. I've been bombarded by these in my youth and ended up being generally satisfied with whatever I have and whatever idea, concept, suggestion and the like is thrown at me. But well, it also actually helps at times to be dissatisfied. It pays to see the glass half full to actually know what we need to fill the glass up. When it comes to criticizing things, I sometimes end up being overly generous and miss some or even critical flaws of what I'm criticizing. There are things I overlook because I'm so used to it or don't see what can be improved further. I miss the need or want to change, to improve, to update, etc. It is because of the need or the want that drives us to get more out of things. For years, we have settled for the current cell phone keypad layout. Personally, I never got used to this. I have a Nokia 6800 and open it up whenever I type on my phone. Being a computer user, I'm already used to a QWERTY keyboard and so why not use it? But should it just end there? Heck no. Actually it hasn't, since there have already been solutions that have been developed. Mobience and Nuance have proposed alternative and faster means of text input compared to the current cell phone keypad layout. Mobience offers a "universal text input solution" based on the QWERTY keyboard. Meanwhile, Nuance offers another solution but is based on voice recognition. These two seem like promising solutions. I don't know if people will want to accept this change when they are already used to the current system, even though the new ones require less to no button presses. So, is the glass half empty or half full? Typically, the optimistic "half full" is the way to go but I should not end there. It is only half full (or empty) and there is still a half that can be filled up. Why not fill it up?

Computer Addiction or Just Modern Life? Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday February 14, @10:29PM Ant writes to tell us that ABC News has an interesting look at computer addiction and what it might take to be considered addicted in today's society. From the article: "Video games and the Internet have been subject to suspicion since the computer became a household fixture. One complaint: People get sucked into spending enormous amounts of time on the computer, to the detriment of other parts of their life. But are they addicted? The answer depends on what you mean by 'addicted.' Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling."

The world becomes smaller through the internet. Loads of information are waiting to be found. Either that, or publish your own. The internet has truly helped with communication. Sending documents, pictures, and other data is no problem with the help of e-mail, file sharing and the like. These are all happening in the virtual world, but the social aspects are very real. I guess this is why "computer addiction" is somewhat like gambling. We put in some time and hope to gain even a little from it in any aspect, but mostly socially. Unfortunately, it is difficult to call virtual communities communities. Although there may be discussions, actions or movements of individuals or groups in the community, one can always opt to "quit" the community temporarily or forever. Also, communities can get too large and quickly change in number that makes it hard to recognize individuals. In online or networked games, one can be part of a guild or clan. One may have started it, be invited into it, or requested for membership. But if one decides to stop being a member, one can just press a button and quit the group. The same goes with forums and lists. One can choose to participate, lie low, or just leech information. With all these movements and instability in the virtual world, it cannot be helped that it becomes fragmented. And with this fragmented world comes a fragmented individual. Thinking again, rarely are people able to self-actualize themselves in the greater scheme, but are often able to in smaller social groups. And sometimes, that's all that matters because in these groups are those people that truly matter to them.

Manila stadium stampede kills 88A stampede outside a sports stadium in the Philippines capital, Manila, has left at least 88 dead, many of them women, with more than 200 injured. Tens of thousands of people had come to the stadium for the first anniversary recording of a popular TV gameshow. Rumours of a bomb hidden in the crowd reportedly caused the crush. The Wowowee show is popular for offering large cash prizes in a country where 40% of the population live on less than $2 a day. The show, which airs six days a week, normally offers a 1m peso ($19,250) top prize, but Saturday's anniversary edition had doubled that money. "This is a programme that intends to help Filipinos, especially the poor," said host Willie Revillame. "We only wanted to make these people happy." Gates barred About 30,000 people were waiting to get into the Ultra stadium in the Manila suburb of Pasig - significantly more than the usual 5,000 who attend recordings. The programme, produced by ABS-CBN television, had never used the stadium before. As well as rumours of a bomb, other witnesses said the crush began when guards refused to open the gates to the stadium. Vice-President Noli de Castro visited the scene of the disaster. "We did not want this to happen. It's just that there were so many people wanting to watch Wowowee because of the big prizes awaiting them," he said. Bodies covered in sheets were lined up beside a police cordon at the stadium. Merquieades Salazar, 45, wept over the body of his wife. The couple, jobless, wanted to enter a raffle run by the programme. "In the desire to win money, she is the one I lost," he said. Presenter Willie Revillame said the show would go ahead to provide information for the injured and their relatives. But police said the show, scheduled to begin at 1300 (0500GMT), should be stopped. "The show must be cancelled so that people will go back to their homes," said Manila's police chief, Vidal Querol.

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It's sad that ABS-CBN just wanted to make these people happy...or this is what they say. But with all the issues floating around them and stuff, one cannot help but doubt their true intentions. Do they value life & happiness or do they just want the money (even if it involves exploiting these people)?...but I guess that's another story. So what went wrong? Do we blame the ones in need: Plain stupidty, fear of the bomb, the desire to win, ...? The organziers: Unforseen scenario, negligence, ...? Others: Allowing people to such a state of great need, etc...? In the end, lives were lost and nothing can be done about it. Yes, we can blame but we cannot turn back time and recover those who were lost.

Violence

• exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse
• injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation
• intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force
(taken from

Merriam-Webster Online)

During history class, we briefly talked about the seppukku/hara kiri (ritual suicide through belly-slitting) and jigai, its counterpart for females. A very honorable thing to do at that time, but a amusing topic today? The teacher told us about the different steps in the ritual and other stuff. He told us how dishonorable it was to not restrain oneself from reacting from the pain. He also told us how other females would opt to use the aid of the wall to force a blade through the throat, into the spine and out the other side. Then, we talked about how someone who completely beheaded another [such that the head rolled on the ground = dishonorable] who just finished with the ritual would have to perform the ritual himself. During the discussion, a lot of hypothetical situations were raised. There wasn't a minute without laughter or jeers. Is a loss of life such an amusing topic? I guess it's because the blank wasn't filled in. We couldn't sympathize with someone general. Besides that, something done unintentionally could be potentially funny. But put yourself in their shoes and see if you'd still be laughing. I think we're mature enough to laugh in the face of death. We understand its seriousness and then learn to look at it from a lighter side. A good thing is that we are able to openly talk about these things with little to no restriction. But then, we must be careful with our liberty, our being free from control. Should any offense be taken, laugher turns into dead silence.

Yet another casualty of gaming...
Taken on December 16, 2005 (GMT+08:00) from: http://thestar.com.my/...

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Teenage gamer electrocutedBY MARC LOURDES

(Thursday December 15, 2005)

PETALING JAYA: A 16-year-old boy was found electrocuted in the study of his Section 4 home here at 3am yesterday.

Yap Wai Chung was discovered lying on the floor when his parents rushed into the room upon hearing a ear-splitting scream.

His father, who declined to be named, said Wai Chung had asked him on Tuesday night to replace his faulty computer modem.

Worried about his son’s addiction to computer games, he lectured the teenager about it and told him to limit his computer playtime to an hour a day.

After the scolding, Wai Chung ate his dinner and continued playing computer games while his parents went off to bed.

Unknown to Wai Chung, his father had asked a friend that night to change the modem.

Wai Chung's mother, who also did not wish to be named, said that when she woke up at 1am to get a drink, she saw her son watching television.

“Everything seemed fine and I didn’t suspect anything,” she said.

However, two hours later, Wai Chung screamed loudly.

“We rushed to the study and found Wai Chung on the floor with electrical wires around his body,” the father said at the University Malaya Medical Centre, where Wai Chung's body had been sent for a post-mortem.

His father said a note was found on his computer, asking his parents to give his beloved computer to a friend.

Petaling Jaya Deputy OCPD Supt Abdul Rahman Ibrahim confirmed the incident.

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When I become a father...

This makes me not want to expose my kids to computer/video games at an early age even more. (even more? yeah...I've been thinking about this a lot, thanks to my lil bro's addiction...) One of the first few things my kids will be playing with are musical instruments, paint, modeling clay and lego...

I guess there will be a time when they will be exposed to games, and probably that I would still be playing video games...Plus, totally not exposing them to games will somewhat leave them out of conversations.

Being a responsible parent seems hard...but quite fulfilling :P I don't know...it'll still be a while 'til I become a father :P

We had our first meeting with the History teacher today....he kind of reminds me of another history teacher in AdMU, Mr. Alejandrino (I know him because he was my Soc. Sci. teacher during 3rd year HS).

Sometime in the middle of class, he said something like: "the world doesn't work for the shy." It stuck me since I have experienced this a lot of times. It's really pathetic. The shy ones don't get their ideas up front. The shy ones watch in the background. The shy ones don't get noticed.

What is being shy in the first place?

1 : easily frightened
2: disposed to avoid a person or thing
3: hesitant in committing oneself
4: sensitively diffident or retiring
5: secluded, hidden
6: having less than the full or specified amount or number
7: disreputable

Source: http://www.m-w.com

Two, three, four, five...that's me! I may not be as shy right now but it still disturbs me. There were a lot of things that I could have shared, done and said before and that's why I try to make up for these things now.

Why am I shy in the first place? I guess it's because I fear embarrassment and judgement (I think there's a better word for this...). I don't want others to think of me wrongly. But then, so what? If they don't like who I am, then it's not my fault anymore.

I don't want to be shy...

I want to and will become more assertive and agressive with what I do (but of course, still remain balanced)...

During my trip to Kenedy Space Center last December, I saw a sentence that I couldn't forget (well, I might've forgottten the exact words but the meaning is essentially the same): "The horizon of man is infinity." Obviously, horizon being referred to is the "range of perception or experience" (definition of horizon taken from www.m-w.com). If there is no limit to what we can learn in the universe, will it even matter that we gain this amount of knowledge and experience? Will we be able to gain the knowledge soon enough to live past the end of the world or are we just going to fade away? If we survive, what will be past the end? Will we survive the next "end" and one after that...? If we fade away, will we be leaving marks or legacies of our existence? Will these be even found or understood by another being in the universe? Will our mark be of any use to these beings? Are there other beings at all? The questions just go on and on...Well, I guess sooner or later we will be able to answer all these questions. However, by then, I guess we will have other questions to answer.