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.