which is mightier the sword/spear or shield?

i mean philosophically anyway.

people usually tend to say the point is moot because the sword or spear will never penetrate the shield. that sentence in itself means that the shield will always be mightier but there comes a time when people will make better swords to get past the shield and so we return to square one. but i think we can see where this is going. long story short, the sword will always be mightier than the shield.

i can hear you go: "now, hang on because based on the above logic it is only a matter of time before the shield catches up and beats the sword." True, but you do need to consider that the shield needed time to catch up to the sword. The shield is a reaction to the sword and this is true even in real life. i would be surprised if people created the shield first and then the sword. the question we should actually ask now at this point is why is the sword always mightier than the shield?

as we advance in technology and science, we as humans become more and more adept at looking for ways to kill one another more quickly, more efficiently and in greater numbers. in our modern society there are now fewer and fewer ways to defend oneself. the best example is the atomic and nuclear bombs. Now, the threat of nuclear annihilation has sort of passed but back during the Cold War, the problem wasn't really how to make a bigger, more powerful bomb. the problem was how do you defend yourself against such a weapon? Till this day, there are no good countermeasures to such a weapon and is a clear case where the sword is indeed mightier than the shield.

another example would be walls. Walls and basic fortifications were rife during the medieval ages and carried on until the renaissance if i'm not wrong and that was when they started falling out of favor. gunpowder was the reason walls were no longer effective. walls and forts were strong and to a degree could withstand long sieges against them but gunpowder weapons literally blew that idea out of the air. which is why walls are no longer a feature in modern cities.

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just a random thought 

Analyzing where the SW "resistance" went wrong and how we ended up with SW 7

So, if you haven't guessed, i'm actually referring to Star Wars. It's taken awhile i will be frank.... that is awhile to digest and accept Disney's new Star Wars Universe and reality. I won't go into what i make of Disney's ham fisted approach to the fans and the universe's canon as a whole. I'll save that rant for another time. what i want to do is now, is offer some plausible theories on how we got to the intergalactic mess that is the story of episode 7.

30 years is a long time for anything to happen and if anything, in this sense, actually makes accepting the episode 7 story even more plausible. you would actually have time enough during those 30 years to cram in at least another sextology or quintology of episodes.

Let's start with the glaring topics, break them down and then try to assemble a chronology of likely events.

We'll start with what we know so far at the end of episode 6. Episode 6 should have in fact, been the last in the series but those of us who have researched and or continued on with the written universe are aware that the universe expanded and introduced the Solo family, the expanded Skywalker line and even more new aliens and crises. But regardless, that'll have to be a footnote for now. What we do know is that there would've been very few Rebel Alliance ships left in fighting condition after the battle. We also know of Han's relationship with Leia that blossomed into marriage. We know that Luke, according to Disney, would not have married Mara Jade. We know that Darth Vader was burned at Endor, his helmet would've likely been left on the Death Star 2. We know the Emperor has fallen into a very deep hole. We also know that the Millenium Falcon was still with the heroes at the time. We do know that based on the ending of episode 6, there appears to have been no immediate attempt to reform the government off the bat. Finally, we can also plainly see that because the Death Star 2 was built as a trap for the Rebel fleet, that there would have likely been a large chunk of Imperial forces remaining.

With all this in mind, let's try and tie it up with what we know of episode 7.

Let's start with the Rebel fleet and the name change to Resistance. The absence of the Rebel fleet in episode 7 was very telling. I mean, we've not seen any large or even small Rebel capital ships at all throughout the movie whereas off the bat, we immediately get to see a First Order star destroyer. We do know that the Resistance seems to like repurposing their X-wing fighters to become interplanetary espionage and warfighting fighters. That, and we know that the Resistance seems to be down to some kind of space skip looking garbage....troop hauler. So, what's the deal?

Simple answers being best, it would have to have been that there was some kind of cataclysmic series of battles that simply extinguished all known Rebel fleet elements. We must also consider that all ship building capabilities have been lost to the Rebels although it appears they were somehow capable of at least buying new X-wings. The new generation X-wings indicate that at some point, the Rebels must have had enough resources to have upgraded all their fighters to the current spec. This shows that the Rebels were either at status quo with the remaining Imperial forces at the time, or possibly superseded them in power. The name change to Resistance is a bit of a give away in that sense. We can therefore assume that at some point, the Imperials became weak enough that the Rebel Alliance was able to reinstate the Galactic Alliance and become the galaxy's de facto government. This would at least explain the new X-wing fighters, though it doesn't really explain why the Resistance seems to have maintained their generally lower quality equipment for their ground forces.

I think then, it becomes rather impossible to not believe that the new government the Rebels installed seems to have been rather corrupt and incredibly incapable. A micro example seems to have been the entire Skywalker-Solo family line. While Han Solo, Leia and Luke were excellent rebel leaders and war fighters, it appears that in their newfound positions as key figures of government and family, they were incredibly inept. Han, Leia and Luke appear to be directly responsible for the creation of Kylo Ren. There must have been some case of negligence somewhere that resulted in Ben Solo assuming the Kylo Ren identity. Additionally, if Kylo Ren's skills are anything to go by, it is indicative that he likely never completed his Jedi training at all under Luke. Kylo Ren created a defective lightsaber, could not outfight Rey or even Finn, lost to Rey in a mental force duel and despite being able to stop a laser bolt in mid air, could not do anything more than stab Solo in the gut in the most deceptive manner.

I think the most tellingly obvious part of how ineffective the Rebel Alliance government was how ineffective they were at trying to expunge and destroy the Imperial remnant. It cannot be that after knowing how hellishly effective the Empire was at creating new armies and weapons, the fledgling Galactic Alliance simply ignored them. So, there have to be 2 possibilities.

the first possibility is that after Vader and the Emperor's death, a new leader rose from the Imperial Remnants. This could be a Grand Admiral Thrawn kind of figure, in fact, it could be Thrawn. Thrawn could've led a highly effective Civil War, General Lee types of campaigns against the Rebels. This would have kept the 2 sides at status quo sufficiently that the Imperials could have rebuilt all of their lost capability and then allowed them to build the Starkiller base. Of course, this means that the Rebels needed to have several McClellan type leaders at all levels of the Rebel government and armed forces. The rebels would need to have been hamstrung several times to have come to almost zero fighting capability by the time of episode 7. It is also indicative that either Leia inherited the entirety of the current situation or else all other Rebel leaders were highly incapable.

the second possibility is much like the first but has more to do with likely degradation and corruption within the Rebel government. as 30 years is a long time. It is possible that the Skywalkers retired from active duty and allowed the Rebels to install the new government on their own. It is likely that they were able to mostly neutralize the Imperials down to almost nothing and when they thought they were secure enough, ushered in peace. In this case, it is highly probable that corruption and ineptness of the systems allowed a resurgence for the Imperials. The name First Order is most probably indicating that there are other Imperial factions. The strong showing of humans in the forces possibly also show that humans were likely treated unfairly in the Rebel's government enough that a number of them decided to support the Imperials. Therefore, in this scenario, Leia could be forced into the general's position by the sheer necessity of needing to restore some strong leadership in the Resistance.

In either case, the Rebels likely degraded from a fully functional government to a tiny band of resistance fighters due to the complete destruction of any and all fighting forces. The presence of Starkiller base is also another strong mark of the lack of strong Resistance capabilities as a facility that big, should have been easily spotted and destroyed if a fleet of any size was available. This likely shows that the Resistance have been on the losing end of the fight for a long time. We can probably place the starting point of Starkiller base about... 10-20 years before the events of episode 7. We can round it to 15 to make it easier. This is based on the amount of time needed to have built a fully operational Death Star 1. I'd be happy to change this number if i'm found to be off the mark.

Kylo Ren and Snoke have an interesting relationship. It in fact, could be linked to how Kylo Ren came into possession of Darth Vader's helm. My theory is that it likely came from Snoke. Snoke is the main leader of the Imperials at this stage and we are also aware of Ren's highly tumultuous relationship with his parents and perhaps even Luke as well. In either case, we do know that Kylo Ren is seeking power for some reason. Power was the same reason that drove Anakin to the dark side. Ren must have likely been convinced by Snoke that the dark side has power and that he could achieve great things similar to Darth Vader if he became a Sith. Which sort of leads to the question of what on earth did Luke forbid Ren to do? Of course, i suspect Ren must have been desperate enough as well to have overlooked the fact that Vader, despite turning to the dark side, was ultimately killed anyway.

So, who is Snoke? My hunch is that it is the Emperor, disfigured and still alive. As we have seen with Darth Maul, despite being cut in half and falling into a bottomless pit, it is possible to survive. Snoke maybe ugly as sin, but the Emperor falling into a pit and surviving therefore seems highly possible. This is in addition to another fact. If anyone has played the earlier Star Wars Battlefront 2, you would note that you can play as the Emperor in the Death Star map. The Emperor has the uncanny ability to float and hover in mid-air, alongside moving incredibly quickly. So, the Emperor should have been able to survive his fall. But why rename himself to Snoke? I feel the likely reason is that it might have been prudent for the Emperor to have laid low, assumed a new identity and then return to power when it was time. I suppose another question that comes to mind is how was the Emperor able to keep alive all this while? We'll need to go back to the story that turned Anakin to the dark side in episode 3, the Darth Plagueis story. It is highly probable in this case, that the Emperor actually does know how to stop people from dying by using the force and would have used this to extend his life.

Ok, so just to wind up, let's take a final look at Rey, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. The likely theory so far as to why Han Solo and Chewbacca went back to smuggling work is linked with why Luke decided to take an extended vacation: the realization of their failure with Kylo Ren. We know that there was some kind of amazingly bad crisis with Kylo Ren but that is never expanded upon in episode 7. Fortunately, it isn't that important. Kylo Ren went bad, Han Solo and Chewbacca leave. Skywalker walks out and finally Leia must have been a wreck for a time with C3PO and then eventually got over all of them to assume command of the Resistance. How did Han Solo and Chewbacca lose the Millenium Falcon though? They likely sold it off. It would have traded hands several times until it eventually ended up in Rey's home planet. How do we know Han and Chewie sold it? The apparent desperation for money in episode 7. Han had made several bad deals and was now forced to smuggle a kind of monstrosity. He was also so badly in debt that 2 kinds of space yakuza and irish mafia came after them.

But what about Rey though? I think without a doubt, Rey is a Skywalker. This is hinted a lot throughout her flashbacks and random force powers activating after she gets her mitts on Luke's lightsaber. Apparently, if the theories are to be believed, anything and everything that falls through a bottomless pit will be eventually caught by someone. Which explains how the lightsaber ends up with Maz; she just so happens to have found it and there was only 1 person well known enough in the galaxy at the time with a blue lightsaber, apparently. Aside from that, how did Rey end up in Jakku? I strongly suspect it was because of whoever was Rey's mum. Being of Skywalker lineage and on the losing side of the fight with the resurgent Imperials, it is possible that Rey's mother dumped her on the planet while she herself was being chased down by Imperials; Rey's mum acted as a decoy to allow Rey to live. Or... if the story structure of all the various different Star Wars episodes are to be believed, Rey was given to somebody else to raise. That person died and was of so little significance to Rey that she doesn't remember or care. That person might've also been abusing Rey, which meant Rey would have run off into the desert and ended up in her current predicament. Again, the person dumping Rey on the planet would've been the mum. Why? Because Luke would've been stewing in his own juices on that far off planet that he thinks no one else would reach.

Actually, i also have another idea. Rey would actually be a Skywalker for the simple reason being that the piece of the map that shows where Luke Skywalker is, is also on Jakku. We know this because Poe was on the planet looking for the map piece that someone on Jakku just so happens to have. Luke clearly must have meant for Rey to have the map piece so that she would come to him. There doesn't seem to be any other reason other than strange deus ex machina coincidence for the Rey and the map piece to be on the same planet. Which means that first, Luke is a terrible father and second, he was the one who dumped Rey and the map piece on the same planet.

i still have a lot of questions with regards to the writing of episode 7. for instance, why was the rebel government so weak and ineffective? why did luke do the things he did? but for now, my theories will have to do. all that i can see with episode 7 is that people are trying to say that all of the heroes and their efforts in episode 6 were pointless and that the original trilogy heroes are flawed to quite a large degree when it comes to things that are not fighting an evil empire.

feel free to leave comments. i'll gladly update this entry with more accurate information if you're able to provide them and if they make sense.

what is art...?

a philosophical question people will often ask time and again with quite possibly no true answer. so, i'll add my own thoughts to the growing miasma of this question.

i come from an animation background where art and design needs to work together to create moving images. granted, i'm not exactly an expert on the subject, but i think i see enough of both to at least try and give a slightly different perspective on the matter. let's qualify both art and design, starting with design.

Design is basically creating something according to a plan. It is creating something with a specific goal, objective or result in mind. A design can therefore, fail. It can fail in the sense that it does not achieve the goal it was made in mind with. Design is very factually based, easier to quantify and analyze and it also has a easily documented procedures in mind, for ease of repeating the process. From a visual arts perspective, design blurs with art in terms of the creator's technical skill and the creation of results that are pleasing to the eye.

Art itself is a bit of pothole, but for the sake of argument, i'll put that visual art can be divided into 2 categories: modern art and fine art. Fine art is all about pure technical skill. It is the ability to create artworks that imitate life and nature. Therefore, it can be surmised that fine art's overall objective is to create works that are both visually appealing and is as close to reality as possible. Modern art on the other hand is entirely subjective. More often than not, you'll encounter pieces that seemingly have no rhyme or reason to be put together in the first place. Jackson Pollock's art comes to mind and so does 'the fountain' from Dadaism. Some modern art is visually appealing but others don't look very different from everyday objects or are so abstract that they don't look like art in the first place. In this case, modern art's definition of art is allowing the viewer to come to their own conclusion about the artwork. A literal case of: 'but what does it mean?' Modern art invites people to draw their own interpretations on the art piece. The question then becomes, why create such pieces in the first place?

Coming back to the question of what art is and what it should be, we sort of find ourselves needing to qualify each and every art piece. Why do some people like to draw or paint in a specific way or style? Why are some artists celebrated for the same reasons they are reviled? Why are there certain works of art that people will find revolting but is nevertheless classified as art?

Art is and will always be an expression of creativity. At the end of the day, even a piece of pornography can actually be considered art. Art will usually trump design for the simple reason that for design to work, you need some level of visual appeal and in my mind, visual appeal usually comes from art. I would therefore answer the question of what is art with this: Art is about creating works that are appealing.

Why this though? Because simple answers are the best.

We as humans seem to be programmed to like things that draw our attention. It is why we assign value to inanimate objects like gold. It is why we revere a piece of paper with ink on it and call it a national constitution. we like a particular piece of painting and some of us will get the impulse to buy it immediately.

Listen to a piece of music. Read a piece from Shakespeare. Look at the fine details you can find in any modern day concept artist's piece. Even some pieces of modern art has this kind of appeal. Art in this sense is the ability to please our need for something attractive in our lives. 

But what about design being better than art? Design will usually take a backseat to art, philosophically speaking. i think the best way to look at how art can beat design is from an architectural perspective. Buildings from different time periods will reflect the thoughts and emphasis of that period. You'll note that with most modern buildings, a lot of them are designed to be highly utilitarian; big, boxy and with as much space maximized as possible. Contrast this with buildings from the British Victorian or Gothic era or even the American Art Deco period and you'll figure out which buildings look more appealing in general. Design to a degree lacks the soul found in art because at its core, it is about posing and finding a way to answer the question. As such, design can always be without art but to do so would mean that the design will never be as attractive as one that has a bit of flair and passion in it. Which is why when it comes to visual work, good, attractive designs can sometimes be mistaken for art and vice versa.

So, coming back to the question of art. Art for art's sake is a saying that's sometimes used to try and deflect from this question but i think we all know why we do art for art's sake; it's because we bloody well like things that look attractive to us and we want to create more of it.

go fully automated, because its 2017...

... and other flimsy arguments. this one's going to be a rant and personal thoughts sort of thing. if you feel i'm wrong in some place or my info's out of date, feel free to comment below and let's talk about it. i'm not going to talk about the economic situation that'll be affected too much because i'm sure others have done so already and that i'm not too sure i want to go into it right now.



automate?

the basic premise as of 2015 till now has been that automation is the key to success, a prosperous life and a stress-free living because all your jobs will be taken care of by machines. this also extends to self-driving trucks which on the surface, sounds great, but as with everything there's a catch, i'll get to that one in a bit.

automation has technically been around for awhile now. its probably more obvious in the car and manufacturing business where a degree of monotonous precision is needed. you'd notice that humans work with machines to drill, carve and create different parts of the car and every single component needs to fit just so, otherwise the car will either fall apart or not work at all. so, fast forward to after automation and it'll be pretty much the entire factory is staffed purely by robots with only a single manager who does the paperwork. that's great for businesses. because you usually only need to pay once for the robots and ideally, they'll work until they fall apart which means a working life span that's longer than supposedly fickle and fragile humans. with humans, you need to pay them salary every month and if they are doing work well, they require incentives or bonuses and then if they are doing very well, you need to promote them, get a pension plan, medical, so on so forth, etc. basically, when you consider it, apart from slave labour, humans are very expensive.

companies in seeking to sell their products, will undoubtedly press for automation. you can look at this from 2 perspectives. the first one is the aforementioned, reduction is costs. the second one is that the push for automation would have most likely originated from companies looking to sell robots. i also don't doubt for a moment that the academics who have concluded that automation is a boon for mankind could genuinely mean it but i also know there are those who would shill for corporations, because everyone's got their price i'm sure. and the arguments they put forth actually have merit as well. which makes the matter all the more complicated and grey as opposed to being starkly a black and white benefits-disadvantage argument.

self-propelled eggs

speaking of robots. the self-driving cars and trucks are genuinely weird. it'll eventually come to being that an entire generation will not know how to drive a car... and the only people i see who will benefit from this slightly are parents; because their offspring will not know how to drive the car and leave the house randomly. being facetious aside, i don't see how this is beneficial because driving in some parts of the world is still a necessary life skill. i'm not quite comforted by the fact that the taxis i'll be forced to take in the future will have no steering wheel, will have no driver and potentially, not even a single door handle to open and close the door because everything shall be automated to such a degree that you needn't even think. drones doing amazon e-shopping deliveries, i'm ok with; there shouldn't be anyone living inside the packages that the drone delivers. so, if it fails for some reason, it'll plummet from the sky and hopefully not land on anyone or anything and no one inside the drone will be hurt since there's no one in it. safety and reliability aside, self driving cars are pretty cynical if you consider it. i can appreciate not having to trust a human because... well humans are the worst possible creation in the universe and are completely untrustworthy. so, what makes people think that a robot created by a human will be anymore trustworthy? it does speak volumes about how much we trust our fellow man, but i think there's an even greater callous regard in totally disregarding and taking safety for granted when using an automated vehicle.

i don't like self-driving cars for the reason that it feels out of control. at minimum, there needs to be a fail safe. a human does need to be able to take control of the vehicle should there be fault with the self driving car in some way. frankly, if people hate driving so much, they probably should just car pool or stay home. don't force the idea of a self driving car on others. don't go around saying: "this is the future, all drivers shall not need to drive anymore because its....whatever century it is." it smacks of arrogance and a total disregard for anyone but yourself. we've also no guarantees that self driving cars will be as safe as manufacturers claim it to be. and while we're on the subject.... the manufacturers aren't doing a very good job of selling their products i feel. almost every single self driving car i've seen looks like a bubble and the top speed seems to be slower than that of a segway. it looks like a pod for old people. each concept i've seen doesn't make any sense with regards to the environment or the product; it just looks like an expensive toy. sure, they're all electric battery powered and i'm sure because you're the only passenger in it (obviously, not the driver anymore), it'll be a damn sight more quiet, however, i feel the idea fails to appeal because all the designs are meant for the city. electric cars always have had the issue of recharging. the only company that has gone through hell and high water to address the issues so far is Tesla, which has actually sold me on the concept of an electric car. but the simple fact remains; your new self-driving pod will likely not go faster than 40, 60 if we're being charitable; it will be small and cramped; it will look like its been designed by Apple and will probably lose its novelty after the 4th time it refuses to open the doors for you automatically; it will most likely not be able to go further than your local cafe... alright fine, city borders; finally, it'll be monumentally expensive regardless.... but hey, its eco friendly and you don't have to drive.

i actually can't think of a bigger hazard on the road than a car driving significantly under the speed limit. there's always going to be a guy in the subaru rally car who zips by you at 110 mph and will likely collide with the tree at the bend ahead, but he does get out of your way pretty quickly and despite the rudeness of him flashing his high beam, you at least know he's behind you. an egg shaped pod going at 30 is only going to hold up traffic. because these egg pods are designed for a single passenger, you'd probably get a long line of these things trundling along... slowly. what a nuisance to other road users. the hazard comes from the part that you do need to try and overtake these soft-boiled eggs on wheels or risk dying of old age behind them. if you wish to simulate this experience, put a centenarian in a car, any car, even the egg mobiles and drive behind them. this is supposed to embody driving efficiency?

now, i'll be fair. i do go on and on about the engine and the speed. so, fine. what if the auto makers decide to make a fast egg? wouldn't that be ideal? not really. do bear in mind people like to tinker with their toys, eggs on wheels included. you'd likely end up in a situation where an egg mobile has been modified and could potentially randomly veer into you. the passenger in the egg probably won't even realize he's about to collide into something until its too late. i'll quickly add that the egg mobile may have an AI but i doubt it'll be anymore prepared for weird situations than a human driver. if the car companies can prove to me that their egg mobiles won't be a nuisance on the road, either because they're too slow or have an erratic driving pattern, then i'll drop the argument and concede that they've indeed made the roads... slightly safer.

actually, i'll just throw this one out here for a thought: special lanes for self-driving cars. they just sit on this particular lane, and those of us who either cannot afford the self-driving eggs or actually enjoy driving can drive in peace. discrimination you say? of course it is. because this is much easier than allowing the cars to intermingle and actually cause an accident. pragmatic while keeping both sides happy.

the kicker from the CIA

so, awhile back, wikileaks released a series of documents that were hacked or leaked off the CIA. among the documents were cyber warfare or hacking related articles and reports, indicating that they've manage to take control of cars with computers in them. worse still, it has been rumored that the CIA have....misplaced their hacking tools. that should actually be very shocking to the self-driving egg pod crowd because now, if you buy an egg mobile, it can get hacked while you're inside the car and the car will likely drive into a river or off a building (i don't think an egg mobile can go to where cliffs are). or if you want a more miserable life, it'll probably hack into your facebook and share all your heretically bad selfies to everyone or even doxx you. how wonderful is that?

this should actually be a major concern. especially if terrorists are still around.... i mean its 2017, surely there won't be any terrorists or criminals in the future? this is a force multiplier for them and they'll blend right in because people will be used to seeing ghost cars driving around streets on their own. an enterprising terror organisation can hijack these vehicles and turn them into the usual car bomb and then just direct them into target areas. so.... thanks for automating the jihadi suicide vest i suppose. now, you'll get 72 car bombs for the price of 1 hacker. and there'll be more gun-toting terrorists rather than suicide bombers.

i've no doubt that hacking will just be limited to cars though. remember that everyone who is pushing for automation probably will want the robots in the factory to be hooked up to the internet as well. so, there'll be a good chance an entire factory can be hijacked as well. and here we are then. terrorists can hack into a car factory and turn it into a car bomb factory and people probably won't notice it because they'll be on their smartphones or the smartphone equivalents in the future. industrial sabotage will be quite tricky to deal with, i'm sure.

the take-away?

fully automate everything means losing jobs, losing control, and you'll need to learn how to program and repair robots because this seems to be the future people want. people like new technology and new toys. its not just empathy that people are lacking in these days. it is the ability to try and figure out the potential problems with new technology that is sorely lacking. made up in for in abundance in the ability to believe only the bits they want to hear.

i don't buy into the argument that hackers will always be able to get into something they're not supposed to because they're persistent. the idea i'd rather hear is how you'd go about protecting us from such incidences. we're not actually heading to an era where it'll be the rise of the machines. we're heading to a real life Ghost in the Shell era and that is actually infinitely scarier; everything can be hacked into and we've no way to stop it.

we definitely need a lot more cyber security. but most importantly, is to scrutinize new technology and then try as best as possible to excise the potential for abuse. actually, in that case then, don't be a programmer, go and be a hacker because it sounds like it'll be a lot more profitable.

the weird looks from 2010

i'm 26 now and dear god most of the time i find myself wishing i could just start over because of all the mistakes i've ever done. unfortunately, i have better reasons to keep on living but regrets are part of life and you've got to move on... even if it doesn't always work out.

i suspect that even among oddballs, i'd still be the most odd. not enough to be put in an institution but bad enough i guess.

so, reflecting back on certain things i'm sort of happy they happened though i wish they hadn't. why can't i just shit post in peace or be a hikikomori? i dunno.. i'm probably a bigger idiot for remaining out here where i'm now aware of things and leave things well enough alone. i bring this up because of certain factors i noticed in my college years. critical thinking and figuring out critical thinking.

the 2 are very different and not quite the same. if you want to make it in this world you need critical thinking. you need to be able to question things and not just be in an environment that encourages it. in an environment that encourages critical thinking, it becomes easy to be enamoured in a certain set of rules and philosophy. moreso because of your own private views and the expectation that you can voice them out without sounding like an idiot. that happened to me in college. i'm not the only there that has strident views but i'm the only one stupid enough to make them heard. i feel that this has cost me quite a few friendships and in a way i'm glad i decided to distance myself from a lot of my cohort and classmates; our views will never match and i would only be there to serve as a source of anxiety and frustration to others. "why won't he shut his whore mouth up?" would be the frequent thought in my classmates heads.

living in south east asia, we're usually indoctrinated not to speak out or against people, especially teachers or figures of authority. quite unsurprising then, that i become a rebel in any sort of environment with that sort of atmosphere. why? because i don't like conformity most of the time. but mostly i come to realize, its a sort of a rather weird desire to find out why we do things the way we do and that i think we can do them better. anyway, back to the awkward stares of death i get in the classroom. i think my favorite subject were the thesis classes but i was never really that good at them. the only reason i was any good at it was because i could string a coherent paragraph together. that doesn't necessarily mean that the whole thesis meant anything important. i think that my classmates won't and never will appreciate thesis classes simply because they're better artists than they are writers. which is fair and an easier path in life. who gives a toss about the patriarchy and the male gaze when all you want to do is render great looking pictures and will likely get paid more handsomely for said pictures. for me however, it was great. i never had any idea what academia would be like. it was in a way wonderful. finally, i discovered the real meaning of school.... so i would have thought back then.

i think without realizing it, i was being an SJW or social justice warrior without thinking or realizing it. Time does strange things to you, in my case, fully realizing what retard i'd become. i questioned guests sometimes without realizing why. i didn't understand why things had to be simple. a great and massively talented japanese animator had come in and i asked him, was there any reason his antagonistic aliens hated humans and he replied no. obviously, i got stink eyes from everyone in the room just for asking that question. who asks that? me. at the time, i got so wrapped up in the idea of making complex baddies and simple heroes. everything needed to have a motivation everything needed a cause. the thought bubble popped years later when i saw the minions movie and enjoyed it immensely because it was a movie about the minions being minions and nothing else. sheer simplicity. you don't need to be a pompous curator to enjoy that.

of course after that movie, my fragile, poorly structured world fell apart and came to the conclusion that in every waking second in college i was an asshole. correct. but now years later, i can spot things and begin to question them. this is the part of life that i figured out critical thinking. this was and still is the part of life where i am somewhat more aware of what i'm doing and of other people's sensitivities which in most cases, i don't give a toss about either anyway; but i'm at least now aware, you will be offended and why. i can't stress this enough. in a secure college environment that teaches critical thinking, you need something else to be paired with it: objectivity. this one i am very glad my dad thought this to me and hammered home the point like a broken tape recorder. being a lawyer, he needs to view the case from both ends of the stick to see what he can and cannot do. in fully understanding the case, he also understands his opponent and that allows him to create highly persuasive arguments.

for me, being objective allows me to look at issues and wonder: why are the parties involved doing it in such a way? this is the reason if i was american, i would have voted trump (i would have very much liked to have voted sanders). a lot of my friends and former friends view issues in a certain way. all lean to the left and they happen to just stop there. they don't appreciate it but i think they view things in a very black and white sort of manner, which is perfectly fine. it doesn't complicate life any more than necessary. but it does make it more difficult to drill down into the reasons such things happen. especially when you don't want to view things from the other party's point of view.

the take from this is this: college students, you can make as much noise as you want but bear in mind making so much noise will alienate you from your friends regardless of what you or they have been taught. nobody likes a snot nosed brat (apart from me... i wouldn't mind friendly banter over a beer or coffee). college spaces do tend to be echo chambers. if you consider yourself a maverick i have a great piece of advice that might allow you to survive college with friends.

i call this the odd number rule.

take any odd number : 1, 3, 5 or 7. if you add another odd number, it usually becomes an equal number, eg. 3 + 3 = 6. add another odd number again and the new answer is 9, an odd number. however, if you have an equal number like 2 or 4 and just continue adding equal numbers, you will never get an odd number. so, with that in mind, my point of this stupid analogy is that you as the odd number are adaptable. you can force yourself to fit into crowds you usually would not bother with. be a social chameleon, blend in. you don't necessarily have to force yourself to like everything they do. what you do is, you go to college, you learn. you learn to socialize and be civil with people you would not bother with. you learn how to shut up and just see what the teachers are telling you. you should of course try and find out why they say what they say in the manner they say, there'll be a good reason for it trust me. but do not, and i repeat do not do that during a class. that is their time and that is your classmates time. you can always find the lecturer or guest lecturer after and ask. do not ever, let yourself be guilt tripped into asking questions during a class even if the lecturer asks you a question or comments that the class is very silent.

i mention this because i happened to realize in college, i had very few close friends and am somewhat miserable because of it. was i a pariah? yeah, definitely. it was lonely and it was more awkward than not. am i projecting? possibly, but i'm going to come from a good place and say this because i don't think i'll be the only one here who thinks as i do. if you've got a stable bunch of friends, enjoy schools and colleges (i don't) then you needn't read this. am i a wuss for writing this? perhaps. but a lot of us go through different stresses at different times. will i still judge others based on what i'm seeing? yes. for the simple reason that until more evidence to disprove what i see appears.

i'll give you an example of this. i used to religiously watch The Young Turks and gobbled up a lot of what they said as truth. reasons were simple. they were an alternative news source that wasn't fox news, they were on the internet and had an easy to access youtube channel. they presented the news in a way contra to what mainstream news presented. consequently, i've stopped listening and following them because most of the time they just seem to spout vitriol for the sake of it. i forgot which video was the one that ultimately made me quit them but i think it was more of a build up. they always bashed fox news which was fine. but more often they would bash the american police moreso than needed and when evidence to counter certain stories appeared, they never addressed it and continually insisted they were right. i think it was more of the unnecessary levels of hate they have for certain issues. you can't really trust a news source that is no longer impartial but i definitely didn't need to hear this level of profanity dumping on a daily basis.

actually, i have to thank my lecturers, all of them for seeding these life lessons in my head. i may not be the best student, best artist, 3d modeller or whatever, but i am grateful for them teaching me the things i know now. that's all....

electric cars... the other choice... with no difference

i feel like weighing in on the debate of the fossil fuel car versus the so-called superior electric car. you can't otherwise convince me that driving an electric car is better than driving a similar golf buggy. to me, the notion of driving an electric car feels alien, wrong and completely strange. call me old fashioned but our over reliance on computers and more importantly electricity, means that if there is a black out in the city for days or weeks on end, your car won't start but my old style fossil fuel one will.

however on paper so far, electric cars are beating the typical, aging, normal fuel cars black and blue, just have a look at the wikipedia page. its a terrible tragedy but is it really? there are very few redeeming qualities for the old style fuel cars. but before we get on with that, i've put together a table of characteristics of both cars, good and bad, so we're on the same page.

So, depending on how you read it, the normal car will have at least 10 good points and 7 bad ones and the electric car will have 11 good points and 6 bad ones. There are a couple of moot points which in any case mean they're equally bad.

Consider the points in the list and think really hard because far as i can tell the only 2 major plus points for an electric car are slightly better care for the environment (which we aren't doing a great job of at any rate) and its supposed savings. Wikipedia tells us that at the moment you still won't save or get back your money's worth on fuel charges and on the other hand, your home electricity bills will definitely increase. So, not too much of a saving grace there either.

Far as the ball is rolling? Electric cars are still more of a novelty than an actual solution to the global warming problem and every other problem linked to it. Whatever bits of environment you are saving by not releasing carbon into the atmosphere is offset by the toxic pollution created by the mining of rare earth metals for the batteries. Never mind that wars will play out for the rights to mine out rare earth from hostile countries, because they're already happening over oil anyway, so this is just one more resource to fight over. No, the thing to be looking out for then is what do you want out of the car? Reliability? Fuel savings? Performance?

Fact of the matter is this, automakers are still making normal fuel supercars. Very few are committed to making electric supercars though that number is increasing. The only company dedicated to making electric supercars is Elon Musk's own Tesla but that's it. Everyone else is still cranking out fossil fuel supercars. I wonder why that is? Could it be because that it is easier to find fuel than a charge point?

The reason i look upon electric cars with disdain is that it seems to be a rather elitist thing. Here in SEA, we do not have as many charge stations for electric vehicles. It would in fact take a great deal of infrastructure overhaul and additions to make it friendly for electric cars and even then the utility would be dubious at best. old style kampung roads that lead into the wilderness bedot the lands beyond the city, where there is no wifi and electricity. Which is why i considered the range of the cars. you would be very hard pressed to try and charge your car in a kampung at any rate. the distance from any sort of proper urban or rather utopian needs for the car is just simply too far.

The elitism is further being pushed by Germany. Germany is demanding of its citizens and the EU through lobbying, that everyone use an electric car by 2035. By all means, that at any rate sounds like a very, very optimistic target. To go off topic for awhile, can you imagine an electric powered tank trundling forwards to go and fight Putin's tanks in the Balkans? They'd run out of electricity even before they get to the frontlines. In all honesty, Germany has a great many better things to do than enforce what can only be described as facetious idea in the face of an overwhelming refugee crisis that is only getting worse, ISIS knocking at its front doors, a rather edgy Russia and its own growing economic woes no thanks to the EU. There is nothing to be gained from this Germanic Leap Forwards.

Back to having electric cars at home. Currently, its mere snobbery and holier-than-thou-ness that is getting people to buy into green cars. Unfortunately, the only truly green car that i can appreciate are the hydrogen fuel cell cars and the solar powered ones. Solar cars are much greener than the so-called eco-friendly electric cars and they look much cooler and sleeker. Just don't drive when it rains or at night. Hydrogen fuel cell cars; these are the real future. All the reliability of a normal fossil fuel car and it produces water that you can drink after your long drive. There's still an emission but its making H20 or for the unscientific, water.

Personally, i think it will be the sound of a proper engine that i'm going to miss if i am forced to buy an electric car. you simply don't get that with an electric car unless you've got a very clever audio program and sound system installed in it. Yes, an electric car is cheaper.... only in many years time when the price of the batteries have fallen. Yes, an electric car is eco-friendly only because it is the car itself that is not giving off the emissions. You do need to have a fully renewable energy electric grid if you plan to boldly make that claim... and a way to mine out and create the batteries without all the toxicity involved. Regardless, the real only redeeming feature is that the electric car does not produce any form of carbon. Though, granted electric cars will have a slight positive impact on a global scale in terms of carbon dioxide production.

So, what does this mean? It means that you really need to think hard when you make a decision to buy an electric car. Are you buying for some form of personal satisfaction? What sort? Is it the current Tesla aesthetics that's getting you going? Is it perhaps the need for a little one-up-manship? You'd get better mileage from a Myvi in all honesty. If we have to compare an electric car to say your own electronics, namely the laptop and the smart phone, then fine, buy as many electric cars as you want since you're already using rare earth metals in them. Curiously though, if we are indeed going by the batteries in your laptop, then be reminded that each Tesla uses 64 of those. So, multiply that by about 100,000 and you are looking at a lot of rare earth used and ecological devastation, but hey, all for clean air isn't it?

While we're on the subject of batteries do consider my other point mentioned in the table: Samsung batteries. The very same lithium ion batteries that power the decidedly volatile Samsung Galaxy Note 7 could end up in your car, especially if China decides it wants to produce electric car batteries. There aren't all that many fossil fuel cars that explode on their own and those that do are either driven by terrorists or are supercar owners and there aren't all that many supercar owners as there are normal car owners. By the same logic then, your new 'everyday joe' electric car with batteries from China could be a very convenient mobile funeral pyre.

A lot of the hype of electric cars come from its potential in....wait for it... the future. That's a very optimistic way of saying, it will get better but not soon. The logic is certainly there too. If we follow Moore's Law with regards to the batteries it is entirely possible that an electric car will cost as much as a laptop computer. no, i'm exaggerating. But yes, it would become cheaper than a conventional fossil fuel car used by joe everybody, eventually. However, this point lies in the future and is not yet happening. Electric cars are still monstrously expensive and are as with most expensive things nowadays, merely a trophy or status symbol. The current and most utilitarian of the electric cars suffer from the inability to drive and stay in areas beyond their charging infrastructure for long. And as Wikipedia would be updated mostly in western regions, electric cars would only be really effective in highly urbanized societies that have decided they shall be electric car friendly. To be more on point, I don't see most parts of the USA becoming easily accessible to electric cars, especially the rural town areas.

So, the good news is that everyone telling you that electric cars will be the death of fossil fuel cars will have to wait at least another 10 years before they can truly make that claim. Hopefully by then though, the fossil fuel cars will have evolved into the hydrogen fuel cars. And this is with the hopes that hydrogen, being literally all around us, will be very much cheaper than electric cars and more importantly much more eco-friendly than they are. this just leaves the myriad people who are driving around hybrids then. if we look back at all the information here, then it is the people who drive hybrids then that are the real problem. hybrids are as the name implies, capable of using both fossil fuels and generating their own battery charge. They would be great, were it not for the lithium ion batteries in them. So, they use both oil and rare earth which then creates both a toxic wasteland out of the area the rare earth is mined from and also pollute the air. And the hybrid drivers have to gall to rub their rare earth powered cars in our faces.

P.S.

i'd like to end this thought by firmly stating my stance on the matter. i'm still going to be for fossil fuel cars. i'll be using them at least till either bio fuels become more feasible and somehow less environmentally damaging or hydrogen cars become a common reality. fossil fuels were a great thing, till we decided we would like to have more of it. the more of everything mentality, which frankly, is the reason we as human beings are always in a messy state in the first place.

shrug shoulders and plod on

So, here's yet another very different view point.

Lately, i keep finding myself shutting out more and more world news. Frankly, its the same thing day after day and depending on your news source, it'll be depressing either way. corporate media is paid to speak the exact same lines over and over, independant media; while good for getting mostly authentic sources, becomes a bit of a drag when you realize nothing ever improves. Others are merely tabloid media.

When i think about alternative media, i think about the SJWs, feminists and all the reactionary parties involved in world that's just getting even murkier, stupider and more self conflictingly confusing. A bit early for my age to be telling anyone but really, once you've gone past a certain age, your world view should hopefully have been broad and open enough previously that you can feel and tease out what is naturally right and well with the world enough that you don't need to care what comes next. the so-called moral compass. actually, no. actually, i rather think a set of principles based on progress, critical thinking and a goodly amount of skepticism should help anyone last through the world in terms of mental sanity and health.

to touch on the matter of the modern day gender war as an example of the amount of inherent stupidity involved from all parties should give you guys an idea why it is important more than ever to think for yourselves and not just that, but be able to think, long hard and critically of the information given to you.

the famous wage gap myth or controversy can and must be looked at from all sides of the argument. i don't just mean from a man and woman's point of view. you're dealing with a company and its employees as well. so, depending on how biased your view is as well, i could well be spouting nonsense or gospel truth. but i'll put the matter to bed. the 77% percent does NOT work aboveboard for every nation and therefore every woman. it only works in america and even then, consider that the number might be skewed and that it is an amalgamation of the complete number of women doing work and the amount of work and also taking into consideration the types of work. how dare you take this number and blanket the whole spectrum of women in the workforce? that not only skews the numbers but makes light of the actual work that some women are doing.

a scientist is more often than not, going to be paid more than a primary school teacher. a chemist will definitely get less money than a CEO. what was not taken into any consideration were the number of women at the workplace. perhaps 50 years ago, there were definitely less women in the workforce but compare that to now and i more often than not find myself in situations where there are more women and who will make more money than me. figures point back to jobs that women naturally gravitate towards like teaching and nursing. there are less women doing science because there are more women interested in either becoming business people or god forbid, do gender studies. fact of the matter i believe is that in the animation industry there will be times when there are more women than men. there is an entire studio in japan staffed only by women. how progressive is that when you consider how positively backwards the japanese are in terms of the feminist ideal of "gender-equality".

alright, with that in mind, let us look at a general office work environ. you have a male and female office slave. both are 20 years old, both have a starting salary of RM 2k, both have cars, both must work 8 hours a day. so, assuming they work like robots for the next 5 years, they will both make RM 120,000 at the end of their 5 years. Assuming the boss is unbiased, both will be promoted. Now, here is the interesting bit. As a woman, if female wage slave becomes pregnant, she will be entitled to maternity leave, which  means that she will still get paid despite not being at work. as for the man on the other hand, paternity leave is considered "a new thing" and therefore, will have to take normal or even unpaid leave. additionally, the female wage slave already works less if she gets maternity leave, which can be up to 8 weeks long or 2 months of no productivity. we can go further in fact. If the female wage slave then decides to leave the company, she is therefore then exiting the workforce. So, all this will contribute to your 77% of a man's pay. this then, is what the feminists generally are not telling you.

they will then use this misinformation to twist the arms of people, governments and surprisingly even companies. the best bit will still be their claim to be for the equal treatment of men and women. how do you intend to treat men and women the same, when a man's female working partner can get paid while she's pregnant and if the man goes to see his newborn son in the same token, he must take unpaid leave? On top of that, not only do the feminists then want their maternity leave, but they are demanding for more salary for even less productivity. yes, then in this sense, having a penis and testicles is definitely the disadvantage and scourge that the feminists claim.

neatly however, this brings me back on point. its galling to see the world's mentality as it is now; no better than when it was a hundred years ago. the primary difference is that the victims' do get to abuse their position and in turn bully not just their oppressors but everyone else as well.

this being said though, if i ever have to give a lecture at a college and some kid who thinks he or she is being bright, asks me of my opinion on the war in so and so or should a man be able to give birth to a baby, so as to get maternity leave, i will very frankly state: "i don't give a damn, i'm here to show you art techniques and how to enjoy yourselves while doing art and animation. i could care less if the next president of singapore is a genuine komodo dragon. the real world is a distraction from the things you enjoy, so buckle down and do your own thing rather than worry about things you have little to no control over."

keep an open mind on things but remember to question and think for yourself first. step into the world boldy but always remember to be home for dinner. your mental sanity will thank you for it.

add on to previous post (weird times pt 2)

in view of the now rather volatile western comic and movie industry with regards to infiltration of supposedly "politically correct" and "social justice" views. i think it is time to step back and just appreciate once more the beauty that is anime, manga and doujins.

japan is truly something else. despite their economic situation, their creative industry is still going strong.... though workers' benefits and situation could obviously be better, especially for the game devs and animators but regardless. they're going very strong. for every one creator that is sunk by the corporate machine, 10 others are still going at it with a vigour that often belies their age.

the proliferation and spread of anime and manga has not stopped and the way its going, will never stop. you really must stop and appreciate the ingenuity that is put into the writings. this is not saying its just the japanese are good at it. the pool includes south koreans and whoever else is doing manga and animes of their own. however, i would like to point out that it seems to be a relatively quiet sort of thing that was created and introduced by the japanese. this unfiltered creativity that doesn't use anybody's lens but the creator's own mind. it is a refreshingly pure thing to behold truly.

some mangas and anime are just for fun and that's fine. others have serious stories and themes. the most important part? they are usually able to tell their stories without having anything like an agenda hidden in it. for manga world, it isn't so much the need to show the world what sort of suffering a girl or person of colour goes through. for them, it is the story that is important, the dramatization and not the attempt to rub any sort of message into someone's face. i appreciate mangas and anime because of the free way they express themselves. this appears to be something precious that the western comic industry has lost, this ... creative expression for the sake of creative expression. if its any wonder why manga and anime is still going strong.

i think, if it is one thing that the western comic world needs from the eastern side is this: real freedom. back in the 60's western comics had all sorts of different and wacky superheroes. there were cool ones and then there were those that made absolutely no sense and of course tanked. but the important part was that the creative juices were flowing. this period was full of ingenuity and is the main reason you have an ungodly huge library of heroes. if the japanese can so effortlessly foster an atmosphere of pure creativity, could the west not do the same?

i believe that the salvation for western comics then lies in europe. america has strangely become a land full of strictures and restrictions. the only acceptable place for fresh ideas in america is on the internet. so then, scratch that. the salvation of the western comic book creativity doesn't lie just in europe, it lies in the free content creators who reside on the internet.

the net is vast and infinite, it should be a great many decades to come for online comics. just stay away from the traditional media and i think we'll all be happier for it.

weird times

not interesting.... but weird.

ghostbusters has undergone a gender bender, iron man is now replaced by 15 year old black girl, thor is now a woman and the list just seems to go on.

why is it that established brands seem to pander to the SJW crowd? is it the money or fear of reprisals? the strange thing is that i don't think it would be reprisals for if that were the case, they would have changed the characters a long time ago.

the ghostbusters one for most of the part seems to be just for the fun of it. the new lady ghostbusters seem less of an experiment than it is a movie that's there just to have fun. the trailers don't look pretty but i'd be looking more at the writing and casting if i was looking for faults. so, its intentionally silly.

whereas with the comics industry things are getting rather weird. i'm apathetic to the whole notion that thor must be a woman or that iron man must be a black teenage girl. all i'm looking for is the real reason behind the sudden change. you don't simply take a character who has been established as such for more than 10 years and suddenly make a huge change. i mean there is a reason that when you have superman, after that you have super girl and super boy. i agree with the camp that says you should make a new stand alone character to represent different parts of society, be they queer, different ethnicity, social status and blablabla.

black heroes. you have so many to choose from. static shock is among one of the chief black heroes i have heard of. cyborg as well. if you must have a female black super hero, storm from the X-men. i'll put it this way. comics have been expanding and expanding their hero and villain roster for so long that you can have a library full of hero bios and history and it'll still need more room to expand. the point of the matter though is you could have created a new character or brought in another character. this is a reverse form of white washing it seems. no matter how many times it is done and no matter which character it is done to, people will never be happy about it. perhaps the SJWs will be happy about it. but then again, if we're talking about taste, they probably don't have any.

but back to the question though. why do it? iron man is still in the picture. and the title is still iron man. how do you reconcile the fact that the titular character is pushed aside for a new character who is of a completely different gender? it doesn't feel like progress. it doesn't feel socially acceptable either. why do writers go out of their way to purposefully change something that had worked previously to something that will antagonize your supporters?

i understand experimentation, but is it? have they really exhausted tony stark's story to the point they have to replace him? i sincerely doubt that. i highly doubt its for the money either.

all i can say is this though. i've ploughed through wikias on marvel and DC characters before. i have also heard horror stories about character reboots so bad that the writers who came after had to reboot the whole thing proper. maybe this is the case we're seeing now? maybe we're seeing writers who take to the helm and using their own.... initiative they've decided to come up with something bad but have not realized it yet? i mean this must be the case because Rob Liefield is still working as a comic book artist isn't it? i strongly feel that all we are seeing now is the creation of a bad part of comic book history, an infamous time where the writers against all logic chose to do what was supposedly right in their mind and in a grand, futile gesture, helped to bury a beloved comic book character.

i'd like to think we're all at a fortune teller's den and we just keep drawing the death tarot. sure, it is pretty  much what it means. Death means dying but the meaning behind the card if i'm not wrong is not an end to something. well... depending on your outlook it is something's life dying but it is a transformative process to say the least. only in death can something else be born. i just hope to still be around when that something nice and new is born though.

Not going anywhere fast or at all for that matter

Like most other days, i often make the mistake of using social media (ie facebook / linkedin) and i see how far my former uni mates are doing. obviously, they're doing a lot better than i am. much better in fact. i feel disgusted at where i am. i'm not even a fucking wage slave, i'm tied to a chair doing work i don't like for a pay that's.... it's not bad, but it's not great either and for what? a boss who's attempting to micromanage everything in malaysia from shanghai. i can sort of see why the previous batch of managers and executives left.

so, i'm going to rant because that's what blogs are for and if the powers that be decide to allow my friends, family or even people at work to find this then so fucking be it.

my dad wanted me to become a lawyer. not sure why he thinks its a great idea frankly. he probably wants someone to inherit his law firm though i am fairly certain and adamant that it'll not be me. i don't like reading legalese anymore than i like reading contracts. last time, i got fucked over by some singaporean bitch who thinks herself a great ad director because i did not have a solid hard copy contract that explicitly delineates what each party is supposed to do. i understand the importance of knowing how to read a contract. i understand that it is also important to learn the laws of a country. but that does not mean i need to become a lawyer to do so. i can't stand sitting in a room day after day, poring over books to find a chink in my opponent's case and argument in a way that he interprets the law. i mean don't get me wrong, i'm sure it makes for great tv otherwise we won't have lawyer flicks or even Phoenix Wright for that matter. but reality? i see my dad doing case after case and so far, only a few of his clients are really grateful for all he does. not that my dream industry has a lot of singing angels to be fair. but the point is that, really... i don't have that sort of mental fortitude needed to deal with both shitty clients, look at my opponents every argument for chinks and also have to study the laws. i'm not great at persuading people, i think i'm fairly certain in that too. i think the part that makes me even more upset is that it's a sterile office environment. for me? that's where my dreams go to die. i would rather self-immolate than sit inside an office.... the irony is not lost on me.

so, here i am. i sit in an office only to use facebook..... and twitter and instagram and emails and wordpress. social media, is the way to conquer the minds of the feeble. i myself, am occasionally feeble minded enough to partake in social media groups but not twitter though because for me sitting there reading about someone's thoughts every 2 minutes seems a bit of a drag. its a gigantic irony i find to do digital marketing. or marketing in general but i'll get to that in a bit. ok, previously i had fun in my office. i could go and do some design work. wasn't very good at it, just ask my former boss in the other department, but i did improve and then i decided i'd go help in the digital marketing side... seemed like a good idea at the time. the only upshot is that i'm reasonably comfortable on my chair and i'm not working directly with possibly the worst marketing manager this side of selangor. i mean... how bad does it have to be that one of the company's supplier's marketing manager sighs heavily and annoyedly at the mere mention of your name? how?

anyway... i do occasionally need to work with her. just... treat her with the same respect you'd give to your computer. no wait... i give my computers more respect... anyway just treat her like that colleague whom you need something from but secretly despise. you would think that working on social media is very entertaining and very relaxing. it isn't. i've had to deal with so many brain dead customers its a wonder that the nation's general IQ hasn't fallen. eg. i put up a poster on facebook telling people that my company has a new contest coming and here's how to join it. few seconds later, i get questions in the comments going: "how do i join?" let me be clear. i posted a poster that was of high resolution, reposted the instructions in the description box and had gone through the instructions with other managers several times to make sure that they were simple enough to understand. so, how mentally retardedly unobservant do you have to be not to know how to join? wait, it gets worse.

i hate doing customer service. unfortunately, this is one of the things that comes with doing social media, you will eventually need to open channels of communication with customers. if you even so much as blink wrongly, you'll get a tonne of backlash for it online. and for a company of company's size, it's something we simply cannot afford... also because it'll get me fired. its maddeningly difficult, especially if you're dealing with self-entitled fucking chinese 'aunties'...'specially the ones from puchong because they mostly think that we owe them free classes. i recently got some fucking cancer survivor who had unfortunately gotten a pack of flour with maggots inside them.... that isn't nice or is it very good. being professional, i sought to try and fix the situation. obviously everyone else in the company just followed policy.... the "cancer survivor" demanded compensation otherwise she would put out a public complaint.... see the problem is that she no longer has the receipt for the flour bag. my company needs the receipt so that we can check when she bought it and so that we can replace it. company policy states that if you've no receipt, you cannot swap the product. also the swap has to take place within 1 day for food stuffs and 3 days for non-foods. but i was prepared to override the rules because: a) the flour costs RM 2 and b) so that the "cancer survivor" bitch would shut up. boy, i got a big fucking slap on my face. "THANK YOU BUT NO THANK YOU, YOU THINK I WANT MORE OF YOUR MAGGOT FLOUR ISIT?!~ GOOD DAY!" love the fucking cancer survivor.... maybe don't go and make your photos public right? also, if you're so upset about the flour, stop baking, it isn't good for your lymph nodes sweety.

these are just some of the customer service stories from my end. retail customers can be some of the worst creatures on the planet. clearly, this is how you make a housefly look more benign.

let me get back to the marketing bit as promised earlier. so, ok. marketing at its bare basic is noise making, trumpeting and in a way, saber rattling. its noise making because you need to attract people to your product. what are your product's good points. you need to trumpet creatively to get people's attention.... and also so that you can get sufficient sales to cover the cost of the trumpet. it's saber rattling because you need to make more noise than your opponents.... that was just a random word that i found that might link to the general idea.... but maybe, just maybe, your marketing campaign is so effective it'll force your opponent to rethink his grand strategy... i have not been able to do that online yet, and with my current resources, i doubt i'll even make them cry... laugh maybe but not much else.

i do despise the necessary evil that is marketing. too little marketing and your good product will never get sold. too much marketing and to me that sort of becomes grasping at straws to figure what is exactly nice to say about your product. its very difficult to find something nice to say about your company's own chocolate when there are so many other similar quality chocolates out there already. then, you do have the nastier bits of marketing. massaging the truth so that your products are actually better sounding than they are. you can make it seem that your product has little to no down sides. that feels disingenious enough that i don't even want to be near marketing. fortunately, i have not yet had to do this, but the way things are going, i think it'll be a matter of time.

frankly? my company is not doing well and will not be doing well in the coming years. i have never understood the reason for the big boss maintaining the company. he's clearly done very well for himself in shanghai and will continue to do well. the other share holders and directors just appear to be tagging along for the ride.... as weird as it may seem. the big boss only comes to town once or twice a year, if we're unfortunate enough. he doesn't want to deal with his company's issues. there's a lot of compounded issues here that'll continue to fester in the company. just recently, another batch of managers left too, this time, seasoned retail outlet managers. this is similar to an army having all its platoon sergeants either being killed off or deserting the army; its not just bad for morale, it is indicative that there is something deeply wrong with the army if the rank and file are also choosing to leave. your issues at hq should not have such far reaching effects! obviously, this ties in with the marketing manager and the way things are handled. the new inventory management system is also linked to the financial management system and based on it, it appears to be causing more problems than it is solving. the system provider... who is incidentally the company's consultant too keeps pinning on human error.... which in turn has caused another senior finance executive to leave. this is not forgetting that on the purchasing side, they're either undermanned, mismanaged, misguided or all three. if the system is to be trusted then they're undermanned and mismanaged. however, if the system is indeed at fault, then they've been misguided. it gets fucking stupidly murky at this stage.

a lot of the issues here do not affect me directly, other than having to liase with purchasing to figure out which items i can put on sale... haven't tried liasing with them for that yet but i'm terribly worried about how it'll end.



i think if you want to look at the whole matter from a different perspective, you can look at me. so far, i've been raised reasonably strictly, but all this has done is prove that i have to score well in everything. this is also with regards to me not doing so well in college. i've made mistakes and have considered just ending the whole piece of shit i call my life over and over. i have since learned it would cause more problems for my family and have decided against it but this is fucking close to being torture.

i think there's a certain small masochistic pleasure i get when i see my former uni mates go about achieving their dreams and here i am in a fucking dump. actually, i like to make myself feel even lower in rank than garbage because i also recall i have little to no skill in anything i have ever done. i think i find it reassuring that even if i put in all my effort, gave my everything, sacrificed health, sanity and soul i still would not have gotten a distinction in anything. i would be that random, small oddball in the corner of the room... sort of like that shit stain that won't disapper but doesn't stink enough that you'd notice its there.

i feel rather resigned to my fate that i'm not destined for anything. i've tried fighting and i've just ended up in a dump. offices are where dreams go to die. i'm sincerely hoping all that its done is put my dreams in a coma. i don't quite feel it anymore. i'm 26, i can't pull all nighters as frequently or as regularly as i could. i certainly can't be hired by an animation or games studio anymore either. i have not had any fucking time to put together reel. i have no time to even practice animation. fucking hell, even my doodling has been affected. and for what? to go and do a series of fucking events nobody except the boss cares about? he's not even there! what does he fucking care if anyone turns up? i'm willing to bet we lose more money doing shitty events than we gain from them. maybe if the big boss can admit that he needs to be back in malaysia to sort things out, he might be able to fix things, but i doubt it. in his own words: "why the fuck do i hire you people? i should just replace you all with clerks!"

fucking do it you piece of shit! come on, do it. if you are as great as you claim to be, give me my 6 months of pay, i'll gladly fuck off so you can hire a 2 bit clerk to go and settle everything for you. you don't appreciate the effort we put in. all we get is a lousy thanks that feels more rote than students singing negaraku.

i need to get out of here. i have never been driven to blog before but i have now. my parents will hate me for this but fuck it. i am not made to live inside an office.

Waking up in Singapore

For a long time, I called Singapore home; that's about 5 years and give or take a few months. It wasn’t a difficult move from Malaysia. The plan was simple, I would leave Malaysia, hopefully for good, to go to study in Singapore and secure a permanent job there for a time. Singapore would be my stepping stone. It sort of was and wasn’t. But the thing is here, I could appreciate things others might have taken for granted a lot better.

To give context to what I mean, I have to give more of my background information. I was raised in a relatively strict family. My mum would be the whip or cane while my father was more lenient but not by that much in comparison. My mum frequently blew her top and my dad less so, though it was never any less scary. Almost everything in my life up to this point was directed and advised by my mum. Course, if I couldn’t take or understand certain things to my satisfaction, I would not do them or do them well. An example that my mum regularly brings up is my piano classes. I did not understand at the time why music was so important and never gave any time to practice and even if I did it was always begrudgingly and so as to not get scolded further. I never moved past beginner level, which was fine because piano classes were expensive and I didn’t appreciate the instrument when I was younger. My mum assumed because that as a child I would automatically go and learn a new subject and take to it. Music and learning piano was good for the brain, that was her understanding. Course, to me at the time, I didn’t want anything to do with it because it was time being taken away that I could waste on other things I preferred. It was only in college that I realized music would’ve been important to me more literally if I could actually use it in a project rather literally, rather than follow some expert’s theory that it would grow the brain in a more balanced manner. I still do not regret that decision not to pursue music at the time because I didn’t understand the importance.

Anyway, my household has always been very strict. As such, I grew up rather polite and friendly because if I was rude in any way, I would be scolded and punished for even the slightest thing. Sounds harsh but I appreciate the efforts my parents put in so that I would not grow into a little shit like most other children these days. For me, responsibility was more about doing something so I wouldn’t get scolded. I grew not to know how to appreciate positive feedback  because I very rarely ever received nice comments. As my ex so succintly put it, I was an emotional dwarf. I never knew how to react in a public situation because my mum would always take the lead and I would just follow. There were so many things in life I grew up expecting there to be certain rules and ways to do things simply because my mum would scold me if I didn’t do it “properly”. Of course, because of this I would get stuck in certain modes as I wouldn’t get scolded this way. Ridiculously enough, my mum would still scold me for being inflexible. Rather fortunately, I was very open to new ideas, which is why I frequently rebelled against everything and anything being forced onto me. This is the part of me that my mum hates but I feel she never understood or bothered to learn why.

In a way, my biggest act of rebellion was to badger my parents to send me to Singapore. Well, not so much badger, suggest. The act of badgering was to ask them to get me into an art college. I had to prove that doing animation was both profitable and good. I managed to sell my case to my mum though my dad had difficulty understanding it and always insisted I go to learn law which was a laugh because every time I stepped into his study room it was so choked full of law literature that I was always daunted by it. At any rate, my initial frolicking about in an art college was at The One Academy. That was an…. Interesting and necessary experience. From there I learned what to expect from an art school and what might make a good art school. After dropping out, I set about moping and looking for a new college. Eventually, I took up my mum’s suggestion and we took a trip down to Singapore to check out the offerings. I tried for Digipen but the requirements were a bit….high. I did however get a lead from there to try out at LASALLE. To this day, LASALLE has been my most important milestone, next to joining a certain baking retail company.

This started my actual learning phase. Learning about life, not just art and animation. The most important ingredient to this was the freedom from my parents. In Singapore, I could actually and finally be myself because I had breathing room. Don’t get me wrong, I will always be grateful for my parents near harsh upbringing and they did do it well. I didn’t turn out a piece of shit. However, it was in Singapore that I was able to finally learn how to socialize properly. I had to learn how to make decisions on my own and above all, actually live life the way I wanted to. My life will never be the life that my parents want it to be, which is fine because I’m happy even if my line would never be stable.

Singapore gave me my first girlfriend, subsequently ex. Being here also taught me how to appreciate my family more. My living was in stark constrast to some of the more, debilitatingly spoilt students and some of the most hard working students who were ferociously and proudly independent. I knew I had to strive to become even more independent. That materialized for only a short while. After graduating from LASALLE, there was the problem of work. One good thing about Singapore was how much of a slap in the face it gives you when it comes to grant repayment: you can have a degree but still wind up working as a road sweeper, just to pay off your grant and the Singaporean Ministry of Education won’t give a fuck about it.

This aspect of living in Singapore always rankled. The ideal situation would be that you apply what you learned in Singapore and actually contribute to your industry in Singapore, not work as a shop assistant at the arse end of the industry; selling accessories and merchandise that related to animation. Life is like that though. I eventually stopped work and had to leave Singapore as my passes expired and no one would hire a Malaysian when they had quotas of Singaporeans to fulfill. I have seen so many companies get their desired talents turned away because they needed more Singaporean talents…. In certain cases, Singaporean talents that realize that working actually involves work and run away after a single day, bringing everyone back to square one.

And so, here I am, on my way back to visit my brother in Singapore. He’ll have a much better chance than me because he’s in the business field and Singapore could always use more of those. I think the most important thing about Singapore was that it was safe enough that I could have enough freedom to learn more about myself and to figure out how to live life. A lot of my life growing up was very metered, very measured. I could never go and take an extensive risk without getting a chiding from my parents. I suppose my failure to get a first degree from LASALLE has continued to contribute to this issue. Growing up, I think I have never been allowed room to fail. Failure is important. It is living through and past failure that life shows you how not to do certain things. It is important because it is part of experimentation, to see what works. My parents never tolerate failure I feel. This is most likely the reason why I myself and afraid of failure. But now, pushing close to 26, I realize, I do need to fail or attempt to fail in the hopes that I do not. Because sitting here in a stupid office chair waiting for the right moment feels fucking dumb. I find it ironic that they themselves keep reminding me to try different things but all I see is them insisting their methods are correct. I know that they are, but they will never bring me the results I need: actual work in a creative field. They are thinking of stability. Stabilty means money, less stress and absolute boredom. A life of febrile servitude to a corporate being that cares not a whim for the individual employee. Now, that is not life, that is stagnation. That is the way to developing a mid-life crisis and I will not have any part of it.

Writing this now, I do believe it is time to just up and quit. Start afresh. Have actual goals that I know I can and must accomplish. My goals will be more of a loose series of guidelines and targets. But it matters not, long as I do not die in an office chair, I’m happy. So, thank you Singapore for the unexpected freedoms you’ve allowed me from my parents. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my parents for doing the things they’ve done and in fact, love them for it, but I do value freedom just a bit more than the stiff rules they have set up for me in the past.