#undirosak? You Overachievers.

In any family there are different degrees of identity, and stakeholding. Some people feel an inescapable obligation to participate in family rituals, and others may hole up in their bedrooms waiting for all the noise to die down.

I write this note simply to contribute a view. I rarely provide views with the expectation that other people will act upon them - that is the intention of politicians. The provision of individual points of view is important to any communal thought process. So as far as we are one great nation of different people, I provide my view simply as a member of the family that hasn't left the home, nor died, nor been expelled. Perhaps one day, I will not have the chance to write from this point of view. In my unpaid time, I am much more conservative in my social interactions, and will at most, for now, as I have in the past, attempt to be a public intellectual, that is, a public wanker.

There are various media for the provision of views about our great nation, of course - voting is the commonest. I do not partake in that process - and just to make sure that history notes my decision, I registered to vote before the 2008 Malaysia election, and then actively avoided the polls. I have never voted in Malaysia, though I may in the future. I willingly provide my absence, with full knowledge that my vote may be stolen without my explicit consent, as I am aware that is a natural phenomenon of our environment. I used to think that it would be fun to try and become prime minister - and I have thought about how the likeliest way to do that includes conversion to Islam because that's how local politics are wired. (I am religiously agnostic, whereas my NRIC says I am Christian because the people who decide what can (or cannot) go on an NRIC do not properly understand what a religion is. If I had to answer about my religion, I would probably answer something technical, like "math.") And then 1998 happened, and then I realised that I cared less about investing in changing my environment, than in learning how to live undisturbed within it. I was fourteen.

There's nothing really wrong with Malaysia from my point of view - I've lived in the USA for nearly five years, and I didn't find it worth staying a little longer there even if I could. I'm in Malaysia because I'm lazy - I have papers here. That's the defining characteristic of my presence in this country. I have designed my desires to be fruitful and content about the minimum wage that Malaysia guarantees, knowing that economic collapse may render such policies useless. As they say, only the paranoid survive, and for some of us, the best bet on survival is not to bet on the persistence of any infrastructure besides the ongoing state of our own flesh. I believe mental events are events encased in flesh, and I expect that age and decay or violations of my body will result in a changed state of mind. It is expected. When our minds change, we no longer survive - someone else has taken over. This is to say, I never expect to survive till tomorrow.

Let's consider what motivates different actors, to assume different roles in a family. On this earth, some of us love our families. Some of us love our hobbies. Some of us love our friends. Some of us love our colleagues. Some of us love human beings. Some of us love all animals. Some of us love all living things. None of these loves defines us as citizens of our country - none of these are the central component of our social contract. I love none of these things. I have no great love for any specific activity. I have no special love for food or drink, or friends, and I actively pursue an absence of attachment to family, clubs, and nationstates. If I had to think about why I'm still alive, I would say it's because I'm curious to find out what happens - I expect absolutely nothing to happen if I kill myself, so that's quite a boring proposition. So I stay alive to watch. In order to stay alive, I have to make a living, so I engage in commerce (though I am professionally barred from speaking about my work to media outlets). I find that the humans I am closest to are my lovers, and that while I regard them as ordinarily as I do anyone else, at least we know each other better because of our times spent together.

I could go on about the idiosyncrasies of my experience. I could tell you about how I regard people as the superset of machines and biological organisms. I could tell you about how my notion of civilisational progress has no dependency on the human genome. I could talk about how I was once at the same Starbucks as a notorious chap who was not yet the prime minister - and how I thought about killing him, but didn't think it would be worth the risk (if there were no consequences, I would have, but I didn't exactly want to live in hiding for the rest of my life), since the security detail was also in plain sight. Ah, social contracts, the things that make us agree to live in contenance with one another! Nevertheless, sometimes you find that these things matter less, and that putting people in cement barrels is the order of the day. But that is enough for now.

For the purpose of sharing with you this view, my fellow Malaysians (if you will accept me as such (you have to, I'm afraid, unless and until you revoke my citizenship)), I have elaborated a little bit about whom I am and how I interact with the world. Now it would be correct for you to understand that I am part of a tiny minority, of politically agnostic free-loaders, who are content with subservience to racial inequality, kleptocratic governance, and its resulting gross socio-economic inefficiencies at every level of the organisation. Those of us with this degree of psychical independence regardless of economic status, are few and far between. It would make no sense for political parties to court us. We hardly even speak the same language as the masses huddling in their local UMNO cell groups. Do we? (It could be construed that we think similarly, even if we do not verbalise our thoughts in the same language. Maybe that's a thesis for another day.)

Why then do we bother to speak?

Simply, I think, in these times of soapboxing, to remind everyone that we have a soapbox too. That there are others, numerous, and varied in kind, who do not even bother to remind others that they exist. We are the silent minorities. There are so many.

But if you're a politician, you have no choice but to reflect upon views such as these, and wonder what you're missing. All is well as long as you can control your environment. Thank you for acknowledging our views. These I humbly submit for consumption by the masses, even though in other aspects of my life I may not act with so much humility.

Yawn 34

9 Dec 2017 - 23 Jan 2018

Reviewing the list of uncensored topics. Let's talk about sex. It is, for many people, the meaning behind the euphemism, "family." We co-exist in social groups, of various kinds, wherein we may not always agree with the choices of the people we love. [Should you use protection? Professionals use protection 100% of the time; okay, maybe just some of them. Professionals also get health screens twice a month, do you? Probably not.] Whether we agree, or not, we remain often responsible for the unnecessary feelings and darkly lit preferences of people whom we are responsible for. We may believe that they are naive, tasteless, foolish, stubborn, antisocial, and weak, but still... we may require ourselves to reserve 50-60% of our empathies for them, as that is the role, the job, the character, the ongoing definition of a relationship, that which we did, as some say, "sign up," for. We may end relationships, but often we do not. [Will you get sick? If you get sick, maybe so will all your people. And if I am your people, maybe so will all my people. The fabric of our bodies extends.] Because we enjoy our families, clans, and tribes, however so defined. Sometimes, we just sigh, and tell the lads, "I'm not going to nag you. It's your room. You can keep it messy if you like. If not using a rubber makes you happier, do whatever you what, and hope for the best. Giggle giggle." But then sometimes you see in children a spark of concern, a worried afterthought, a glimmer of transitivity in concern. We watch out for our families, and the other families they furthermore belong to. To practical degrees, until such a time as when logistics tear us asunder.

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Enforced feeding.

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"I manage my time fairly concretely. I think of all interactions with other humans as being economic events with benefits and costs... so whether I call it "business" or "friendship" or something else... I mean, I still think of it as a ledger in general. I hope this isn't too offensive. I am aware that many people don't manage themselves like this. You may judge that my personal statements are inaccurate. Well, you're free to have that judgment. It will not be possible for you to get inside my head if you don't accept my personal statements at face value. :P "

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I am not impressed by the slowness of my progress. No, I am not.

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Found myself waking up alert, probably due to too much caffeination. Locked out of the dreamstate? Maybe not. With an alarm clock and some discipline, manual deletion of timeframes in the short term memory are possible. Thoughts can collide and recombine more easily, but you run the risk of losing completely the sense of time. Ah, enforced dreaming.

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Looks like everyone's back from vaca. Where the bloody hell were you?

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So this morning, I was revising some memories, and allowing subconsciousness to produce mutations, then revising the conscious results (basic b creative process). The scene painted out ended up with miners by a wall using hand and power tools to drill into the substrate, and yanking out giant pupae, the size of brinjals, writhing, spitting, and exploding. For what? Maybe it was an infestation.

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Shoe shopping. So many pricetags. I love the smell of money in the morning. Pity it's not mine.

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"Chicken soup?"
"It's good chicken soup."
"You paid RM26 for this?"
"Well I haven't had a kitchen or lived in my own home for almost three years now. Sup kampung gwailo is the healthiest option here.."
"When I eat out, I only order what I can't make by myself."
"Well I know how to cook most of what's on this menu. So I'm just going to order what I want to eat."

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The problem with being able to construct most sensory memories, to a high degree of accuracy, is having to put up with the memories of people who can't. #whatistourism #whatisfoodism #andwhothefuckisbewilderedbyconsciousnessitssuchasimpleconstructomg

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Maybe the every clam is a different clam. Maybe, it is the reaction that is the same, whereas the objects are largely different. The same questions remain.

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次丙季?

I am trying to figure out the best way to say

Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
Quatenary
Etc.

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Tired but content. The world seems no more or less surprising than it did ten years ago. On we go. Yawnies.

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There's no such thing as "changing society," or "changing the world." You have to change individual people one at a time :P

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Ecommerce seems to be forcing down the margins of brick and mortar retails hereabouts. Daisofication of phone shops, ftw.

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After enforcing dream supression during sleep for most of the time since 2000, I feel that the costs are beginning to outweigh the benefits, since my daily life is quite monotonous. So maybe I should enforce daily dream times.

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Many excellent projects this year. Fortunately I can still discuss the best ones without censorship. Wondering what next year will hold, or what will have changed by the end of the year, or by the end of the week. That is a daily discipline, to maintain the concerns of uncertainty. If there is a concern, discuss it. If there are fears known, amplify them. If there are few fears known, mutate rapidly until new fears emerge, then treat them with the former stance. Reiterate minute by minute, for decades, and in doing so, build better people, organic or otherwise, and push forward civilisation. Because the alternatives are vulgar. Destroy the weak. Annihilate the self which seeks submission. Run, die, live, screaming, gargling, howling, unable to control our vomit, drooling through slack jaws and dripping mucus from sick noses, gonadic secretions leaking out through punctures that shouldn't exit between cavities. Speak of weakness with tireless derision. Seek and it is found. Modify without reservation. This is the nature of wellness, the world that is yet to be.

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Nerves. Afferent tone is controlled via efferent tone. Furthermore, efferent signals at max volume prevent the dial from being turned up further, thereby reducing variance in signal strength when the subconscious pulse is to raise the volume. To remove inhihitions, which prevent live sense data from mixing with imaginations, efferent signals are tuned to maximum relaxation of skeletal muscles. I used to associate this with the traditional language of yin activity.

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Unspeakable problems. A subset of increased general complexity. More organisation of my time is required. Way too many creches for casual sanity. I remain appreciative of the people I can depend on for material support of each kind. As usual, I attempt to remain neither optimistic nor passionate about the next day. Each day is appreciated as what it is. Spacetime remains an artifact to be appreciated, rather than acted upon.

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Enforced waking, deadlifts, feeding, and then the usual.

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No shadows, no footprints. #goals

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Physically weak. More construction required.

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TIL: USA LLCs have tax pass-through. Wow terminology. Which means that at least from the taxation perspective, LLPs in MY are more C than LLCs in the US.

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Tangent: so I am chatting with people I meet on Tinder/OKC, and we agree there are no apps for non-intimate friend finding that are equally strong in brand. Market gap?

I'm still interested in talking to capitalists who share my view that the future of human companionship will be non-organic, as machines will be cheaper priests, friends, coaches, shrinks, and maybe even lovers than humans.

There is still much work left undone.

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Revel in knowing what will happen, without being concerned about the exact method by which it happens. AI, automation, blockchain, bullying, infighting, despots, come on now... are you really so blind that you believe it won't happen to you? Enjoy the show. Do what is necessary, and not more. The future awaits those who wait, not those who are excited about it. If you don't live to see it, surely you can only blame yourself for expecting too much of entropy and natural selection. You only make yourself angrier or more excitable over short term value. There's plenty of volatility in the world, we don't need the humans who get all hot and bothered by it. #irony

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Dear diary. Today I made a point to stretch my legs and go for a walk on the sparsely lit streets around a park nearby. I am growing tired of saying "unspeakable darkness," and must develop richer ways to refer to unmentionable things in an algebraic fashion, without angering the gods of our land. During this time of kinesthesia, I reached out across the fabric of our earth to speak with various parties who amuse me. It is otherwise tiring to spend most of one's time talking to oneself out of necessity, for the collection of mutated feedback. Later on, while enforcing feeding practices, I was approached by a creature of delightful continence. We discussed her developing views on the origin of her impulses, the costs and benefits of such habits, and the homeostatic changes she is learning to adopt as she inhabits spaces that are new. Given that I was on my own time, I allowed myself the pleasure of casual observation. This is how I regard most people when I am not at work - it is simply a better experience with some subjects of observation. Long shafts of keratin, bound to orderly ranks, restrained by strands of various other polymers. The distribution of colour over skin. The movement of muscles in eyes, and the structure of tissues under quasiconscious orchestration. The timbre of voice. The projection of enunciated syllables, resulting partly (I presume) from exposure to musical training. The distribution of fat over sinews, arced by structure of bone. A chemical addiction. Maybe several. Coating the moistened membranes of respiration with tar, ash, water vapour, lord knows what else. Good posture. A familiar psyche. I raise subjects of increasing controversy, until her voice quivers and breaks from sturdier form. At that point, I excuse myself and apologise for any possible offense, as that is the custom of the day. Then I think about the experience, and make notes. While making notes, I think about how pleasant it is to use language in as much detail as one thinks, rather than the wearisome practice of cherrypicking only the crudest ideas for public consumption. Ah, that is the life to be, regardless of preference. Sometimes I am scolded for speaking too softly. Sometimes for not summarising. But I do wonder, if I spent yet more time summarising what I think, would I actually have any time left to work on things worth thinking?

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Michelin: One star is one star. Don't overrate it. There are a lot of local establishments that have operated for decades and deserve one star. We're just too far from France for some magazine to care. :P Now if you get two stars, we can talk about a shortlist.

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It has occured to me a number of my trousers are so old that their zips fall down by sheer force of gravity. I may need to invest in a wardrobe makeover before I get sued for involuntary harassment.

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Curation of inadequacies is part of risk management.

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I still worry, that I don't worry enough about the right things. But that is the nature of risk.

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An exciting end to a restful year.

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Lying in bed, wondering if the correct analogy for what I am feeling is that, of having spent a lifetime trying to explain chess to a checkers player.

Probably not valid since I barely play chess.

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Doesn't everyone test the constitution of new members in their network? (I just realised you can read that sentence from both sides of the fence!)

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One of the things I'm passionate about is becoming good at things I have no feelings for. But people don't often believe this is possible. It is a suitable challenge to find a cohort that is of like mind. But what else can you do with so much time on earth? It is a strange role to play in society if you find that all emotionally attached people are toxic, and if you work to remove them from your environment. Many people will call you a psychopath because they can't divorce their cognitions from their impulses. But then we call them lazy thinkers, and devolve into pointless name-calling. But each to their own - in the interest of civilisation, we cohabitate the world. #lifexwork

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Enjoy your 30+% price corrections. I miss the days when I was sitting through 90+% losses on a trading portfolio just to understand how to engage with the experience. Nowadays, most days feel the same.

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A number of personal thoughts cropped up during walking today. Reminded myself that it is pointless to lament the absence of sanity in any society. One must simply exert the way one is aligned with, regardless of opposition. The rest is idle chatter.

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For a time, it was strange to have so many people ask me if life has been challenging. I found it surprising, as recently, it has not been more challenging that it has been in the past. It has almost always been boring - that almost never changes. We just kick the can along. But why do people sometimes ask more, and sometimes less? It tells you what sorts of news concerns them. You can tell a lot about people by noticing what worries them.

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Pedophilia: It comes back to you notion of morality. All behaviour is a matter of preference. Society simply picks which preferences to wage war on. :P

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Milo ais limau: That is actually going to taste like coffee, you know.

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Good morning. Talking myself out of bed, and into the shower, and over to breakfast. And then over to unspeakable things.

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Reading a long rowdy conversation between two foodies that is six months long. Wow. I mostly discuss economics and linguistic concerns with girlfriends. It's a nice cultural excursion. LOL

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Figured I owed it to an associate to fully understand his background. Spent the greater part of the evening reading a 28,900 line tragedy written over the course of 210ish days. Jesus fucking Christ (happy birthday, btw). I haven't read long-form drama of that magnitude for years. It reminds me that I generally see no value in the vagaries and abstractions of "ordinary," approaches to social attachment. (Bearing full-frontal, that "ordinary," means different things to various people.) Talking about feelings is retrograde and childish without efforts to determine the analysed concrete referents of those verbal terms. We can bat around words like "hurt," "love," and "intention," endlessly, but without breaking them down into dots in space and time, these are futile efforts. I'm reminded that I generally consider such aspects of daily life to be sub-human, and I do not believe that they will have a significant place in our future, further evolved societies. Surely, love and romance are the bonds of familiarity that have, and will hold current relationships together. But the players of this currency will eventually die (unless they figure out immortality, before reason, haha). Is it valuable to us as individuals, to angst over our broken hearts in the quiet corners of our beds, or on the edges of rooftops which become the scenes of self-destruction? Sure. Do we find value in fixating upon the lovers who make us feel special to them, that each of us is worth the dedication of another mind to the exclusion of others? Sure. Feels great. Serves no greater purpose. Completely worth deleting. I'm so happy I don't put up with this. (Of course, I might change my mind in the future, but we'll figure that out later.) Meanwhile, ah, excellent, thank you my friend, for this evening's readings. It reminds me to affirm my place in the world, as I see it. Removed from the ordinariness of such charmingly common ebulliences. (Was also reminded by an intimate, earlier this week, that this is why my friends won't want their kids to talk to me. LOL)

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Staying disciplined and returning to the grind, because nothing else matters. Up.

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Thinking about something I wrote for a different audience. While you're out partying, remember that Jesus had a job to do. Lol. It was work!

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Has Whatsapp Live Location Sharing killed the pedestrian crime alarm app market?

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"About idea set X, this is why my friends won't let their children play with my children."
"If we have children, I am not sure I will want to expose them to idea set X before a certain age."
"Well you know, I'll just let them make up their own damn minds."
"Well if we are the sum of our parts, I'd like to make sure we put the right parts in place."
"All the right parts. :P"
"Will you teach your children that manners are important?"
"I will teach them that manners are important for manipulating people who care about manners, yes, totally! Why are you looking at me like that, is it because you are wondering how much of a psychopath I am?"
"I am wondering how much of a psychopath I am for anticipating your answer correctly..."

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"Terrified. But up, for rituals."
"Why do you worry?"
"Risk management. If you don't try to believe the things you disbelieve, you will surely be caught off guard eventually."
"What do you disbelieve?"
"The quality of my peers. Ok, whatever. Delete terrors. Back to doing what needs to be done."

//

Daily conditioning check. Warm ups. Mind not working as fluidly as it did two years ago (or it does, and you've deceived yourself). Body working better (or it doesn't, deceived again). Mission unchanged. War unchanged. Universe unchanged. Tag all peripheral details, stuff them in a bag for tactical resolution. Check terrain. Hypothesise invisible structures. Check all exits. Clean weapons. Sanitise facilities. Rinse. Repeat. I am only talking about mental constructs in the information system of the mind. How's your year going? More concrete, I hope!

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Pausing for reflection over dinner. Whatever it looks like from out there, 2017 performed about 300-400% better than 2016, but there's still 4 days left to invalidate that. LOL

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"Spiritual but not religious," is a bunch of crock that confuses pantheist and agnostic ideas with the human species. Humanism is itself a religion. I am not a humanist.

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No to voting where the system is rigged. Yes to a proper civil war. If you dare. Otherwise we mind our own businesses, and live in agreement with with systematic disenfranchisement.

Caveat: not calling for a war - but just pointing out, as I have for many years, that starting a war may be a quicker and more interesting way to get things done if you do care about changing Malaysia. (I decided not to be involved in changing Malaysia many years ago - and as some have pointed out, the law explicitly would forbid me from doing so by using certain measures which I deem most viable.)

[journo] would your editors care to run an op-ed or further piece not on people who call for war (I haven't yet). But on the view teasing out reasonable implications for people holding the view "the system is no good," or "there's no one to vote for," with the objective of painting stark depressing shades of emotion on everyone, and pointing out that we are all babies in the night?

Lol

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As I lay down, before falling asleep, wide awake, I think of the roles I have played today. In the scripting, and drafting, and execution. And I remember that memory may be false, and tomorrow I may wake remembering nothing of those roles, or the role of acting in and of itself. Age wears one down finely unto nothingness. Perhaps soon, perhaps not. Now waiting to fall asleep.

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Data science has generally been a misnomer, because in the last few decades, you don't admit non-data-driven studies to be called "Science," capital-S.

Furthermore you can argue that "science about data patterns only, without concern about where the data comes from, or what it is for," is what data science is about. But that approach too is flawed, as these people are called mathematicians and statisticians.

Actuaries just happened to be the largest chartered profession that dealt most with statistics in certain societies.

Data Science is now a business term for a bag of skills. There is no (or little) meaningful referent of "data scientist," in the same way that there is no (or little) meaningful referent of "artist," or "activist," given that each of the terms used alone is very vague.

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Paramedics don't run. Still the best reminder all year, to be the slowest guy in the room, particularly when faced with the mixed bag of stones, screamers, and saunderers.

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I don't like telling people... it's not that I don't care about aesthetics. I just think, that they have bad taste. But that's life in civil society. :-/

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Given the fundamentally discriminatory nature of the federal constitution, I am curious to know what approach to compatiblism a new anti-discriminatory law will take.

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Failed suicide: Whereas, when people send you well wishes, it is polite to be grateful, PLEASE do not send me well wishes in the event of a botched attempt such as this. In fact, it would have been a graceful of the public to respect the wishes of someone who wishes to die. Well then, an endless debate. We should all do what makes us happy. :)

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So I had coffee with another bloke today, who's also developed a lot of interest in the field of education. He lamented that despite working in the field for years, it seemed that hardly a dent had been made in the system. Upon further probing, I found many dreams but no strategic plan. I offered to facilitate operational analyses of a critical chain for an end goal. Often I say this, but I do not know if we will ever get to do actual work together. Nevertheless it is good to meet and chat with colleagues from time to time.

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Looking at dead-centre of what could be a 36-hour day. Caffeine prevents sleep, which makes normal vectors for rest temporarily unavailable. So while snoozing, literally reciting "forget the day that's passed (past?)," in order to manually stimulate the subconscious to free up memory. -_- Yes, it can be learnt. Don't bother unless you seek systematisation.

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For 2018, I resolve to stay focused on disciplinary priorities established in 2015. (This spot has not been updated in a while. That is the whole point of long term strategy.)

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Whereas Humanism tends to be a sentimental religion, glorifying the mere existence of our collective culture (and I mean this in a bad way), I do still find that culture and its underlying individuals to be worthy of study: what we call the Humanities, the great superset of knowledge.
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As I go about examining behaviours, economic or otherwise, I often return to the adage that much of this rests on fear - after all, that is the definition of negative feedback in cybernetic systems.
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In my own mind, this evening, I have located hesitations that are due to enlodged memories of pain, which were subsequently "manually" deleted..
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The study of pain management is boring. They say religion is like a penis. Well the capacity for fear is like a toilet - (in the first world) everyone has one. Some people bother to keep theirs clean, others do not. When you find someone who does keep theirs clean, you do not wholly envy them, as it is trite. Likewise when someone does not keep theirs clean, you may castigate them, if it affects you, but otherwise one does not bother, again with such triteness. Sometimes one encounters a person who is a mess, who also has a messy toilet. This is where one encourages them to clean their toilet, as a start to their process of clarifying their thought in general. Smiling makes you happy, and vice versa.

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Consciousness is a property of information systems. We do not know why, but our closest approximation of what a quantified model will look like sits on concepts from information systems. The hard question is just the ontological question. Quit yer griping ;)

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Sometimes I wonder if eating out is a tax on poverty. (I eat 100% of my meals out because my rented residence has no kitchen, and I'm generally pressed for time.) It would be ambiguous, but poetic, to say it is a tax on business.
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Sometimes I wonder if entertainment is a tax on stupidity. No, it is a tax on loneliness. Hahaha.

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Does anyone want to raise money for a Pacific fusion food shop called...
Poke the Bear?

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She said, "So I told Ms. X, that I met Mr. Y, and Ms. X was horrified. She said Mr. Y is a psychopath because he always says he's going to kill himself. But then I thought, "Oh no, I say that all the time... do people think I'm crazy too?""

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Ok, I thought of a serious resolution. I need to practice more plebspeak in 2018. I mean street-talk and colloquial Internet-ness. It will help me to be a better business person, given the field I am in.

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"I will poison and kill it."
"Just remember that whatever is in there is beautiful."
"How do you know that it is beautiful?"
"Well really, it's just a thing. Ugly and beautiful just words we use for plain old things. If you have to call a thing ugly, you have to remember that it is also beautiful. So all things are ugly, and all things are beautiful. But we can't keep all things just because they are beautiful, and we have to throw some things away. But we throw them away knowing that they are beautiful, and that is just the nature of things."
#economics #pillowtalk

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On this.

Hahahaha. Ok, here is a good article detailing what people consider to psychopathy. First, I find that people who use the word casually to refer to others whom they merely don't understand... would be terrified if they actually met a psychopath. Second, I'm reminded that the societal/moral biases against certain behaviours are taken for granted by a great chunk of the population, unquestioned. Third, I'm still more interested in learning such behaviours as a skill, because whereas I do often care about people innately, I do not believe it is reasonable to follow my feelings about them - so I discipline myself to do otherwise. Now do you call the third type of behaviour, "psycopathy," "pure evil," "asceticism," "intellectual utilitarianism," or something else? I could probably just sit around thinking about this for an hour. But not yet.

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Not that the Jedi are more than a charicature of real world traditions... but the angle of the critique is flawed. Toxic masculinity doesn't evolve from people who seek to annihilate their emotional attachments - it results from people who fail, usually because they try to brute-force a problem that is intricately systematic. Mansplainin' taim! Why is such toxicity identified with masculinity? Do we equally effuse that attempts to react naively to emotional impulses should be referred to as toxic femini(ni)ty? How about we just take the gender out of it, and get people to address the real problem: brute force and impulse.
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Buncha fools sometimes, these learned people.

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"Heartfelt moral conscience," is uneviable, possibly even a devolved state of being.

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[ "the big question Camus asked was never the Anglo-American liberal one: How can we make the world a little bit better tomorrow? It was the grander French one: Why not kill yourself tonight?" ]

"Thanks for your correspondance. Why did you send it? :D"
"I thought you might enjoy this."
"I probably will. I spend much time counselling others on it also.

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Once again, I am required to contemplate deeply a political situation, in abstract terms, without concrete nomenclature, including its economic impact, on a society I am intricately familiar with, without recourse to other individuals, at any distance, for assistance. It is also necessary to remain calm, as the alternative is to remove the only hedge available against all teleological risks assumed. And they are legion. I am then reminded that the risks assumed may be increased indefinitely, so long as the capacity to hedge increases accordingly. And given fundamental limitations on hedging opportunities, I must realise, oh, what a game I am given.

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I take it for granted that one day, each of our times will come, and we will end up in jail. Thay is simply the operating assumptions I grew up with as a child in a country without rule of law.

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Whatever you are, you should probably encourage people who are not like you to be on the team, while reminding them that if they become like you, they will have lost that purpose (although they might find new purposes to replace it).

//

I do far too much counselling for my own good. I'm also generally told that I'm too nice to other people for my own good. But I'm also told that I hurt people, and that don't generally trust me. So if I contemplate the sum of it, I obtain something like the following. I like cooking people, as in, in so much as cooking is a materials engineering process, so is the business of taking a mind apart and putting it back together again a more elegant fashion. No one is ever going to agree on what counts as fashion, of course, and that is generally why we do not go about telling all members of society how badly they dress.
.
However, if you have an opinion, it is likely to show itself eventually, despite the most whole hearted attempts to avoid commentary. After all, if you truly believe that society is less great when someone dresses badly, you will try to convince them to dress better for the greater good. Sweep all that aside for a minute. Why do we bother to be sociable? Camusians may volunteer that one has not yet found a good enough reason to expire oneself. Americans may volunteer that it is to positively influence the world. (The last two sentences being the narrative of a blurb I read recently. Thank you Sonja English.) I align myself about 70/30 along that dichotomy.
.
I think that we live in a truly boring world, where the important questions have simple answers which many people are simply unable to accept (Why do you suffer? Well for the same reason that you exist at all, ultimately, and no you fool, you cannot prove such answers, the answers you can find to that question in this life, are purely hypothetical. The only truths that may be proven are by definition, trivia.), and where the trivial questions have complex answers which many people are simply unable to engage with (How is the mind a quantifiable entity? Well if you would care to sit and chat, I can demonstrate it, but it may take you a few years to learn what I know - no offense intended, as I wouldn't expect just anyone to be bored enough for that endeavour.) (How do rockets work, at the level of implementation? Well, if you had a few years... yadda, yadda.)
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So given this is what one can know, or at least opine, about the world. How should one feel, about oneself, and one's place in the continuum of civilisation, moreover how should one feel about the opinions of others upon one's choices? Well frankly, I'd like to draw our attention back to the simple answers: don't bother trying to know, unless you're certain that it's possible to know. Therein we find that some people have faith in their own knowledge, and that some people do not. Who do you suppose is saner?
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None of that matters much of course - mostly we simply seek to surround ourselves with systems that we can identify with, and thereby we become socially and politically aligned with one tribe or another. And then, whoop dee doosy, one day we will die.

//

Beautiful weather for creative work.

//

Post skirmish lunch. I hope I'm not getting soft. Maybe I'm just tired.

//

Reflecting on futility. That which is an axiom of all action, regardless of an actor's acceptance of it. Many speakable and unspeakable things remain undone.

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Wrote a reflection that was off-topic for a post, so deleted it, and am reposting it here. I miss working in technology per se. I'm still a sort of CTO but the industry is not IT. :) #materialsciencesftw
.
Well working in a bank on software - to some degree you're a developer. I started doing spreadsheet scripting at work at 24, moved to web development at 26, and was billing RMx5k/month by 28. Then I stopped working in that field and did a year of study at 29 to learn functional programming languages and runtimes. At 31 I restarted work in IT, and in the same year ended up (in series) as a general manager for a software firm, a web developer for a fintech startup, and a technology manager for a high net worth individual's private incubator of web-oriented businesses. I have not worked in the tech industry since 32, and this year I am 35.

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Looking for Christian communities / churches in KL/PJ which are accepting of LGBT lifestyles. For a friend.

Update: we have three (now 4) leads at the moment. For the most part I'm asking if the organisations are
(a) doctrinally coherent with LGBT practice, or just
(b) friendly, supportive, and non-emotionally-harassing in practice

Update2: ... would it even make sense for a non-Christian, non-LGBT, individual to facilitate a church for this un-churched community?

//

This is why I curate a profound sense of boredom. It's simple, really. If everything is boring, then everything is awesome. #monismftw

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When you're ready, you fight. If you fight, expect to die. Basic b.

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Is there a controversial topic in this world that doesn't consist of the same three letters?

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My approach to talking to people about big investments like education... typically revolves around a means-ends approach. A lot of people don't know why they are committing X years of their time to Y program for Z dollars. So I work through the details with them, if I can. But that is more on the counselling side. For admissions interviews, I tend to focus on discovering their hypotheses... without inserting too many proposals of my own.

//

Lock it down. Intimate meetups during down hours, and other meetups during up hours only.
.
Sun
2200-0900 11h down
.
Mon
0900-1000 1h up
1000-1100 1h down
1100-1400 3h up
1400-1500 1h down
1500-0500 14h up
.
Tue
0500-0900 4h down
0900-1000 1h up
1000-1300 3h down
1300-1800 5h up
1800-2100 3h down
2100-0500 8h up
.
Wed
0500-0900 4h down
0900-1000 1h up
1000-1300 3h down
1300-1800 5h up
1800-2100 3h down
2100-0500 8h up
.
Thu
0500-0900 4h down
0900-1000 1h up
1000-1300 3h down
.
... regroup.

//

The world is a busy place, full of things to do. Moderate entanglements in all manner of follies leads one to gradual exhaustion, and one day accidental death. This is the way of the living.

//

Trying to reshape my mind correctly to engage with the next three days.
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The requirements are mundane but expensive. So all creative enterprises, being short-term memory intensive, must be shut down.
.
Social activity mostly retreats to the highest value channels of social media for maximum reach per unit of cost to memory.
.
Short term memory buffers are scrubbed, and prepared for tactical engagements of a second to second nature.
.
Strategy stands still, breaths held for days. One struggles not to lose consciousness over this domain.
.
In longing for longer periods of rest, I turn then to the mechanism of recalling the memory of a past period of rest. This trick of neuroplasticity works sometimes, but I have not yet practiced it to the point where it works regularly. If you add mumbo-jumbo, it would be called auto-hypnosis. But this is much closer to a save/reload operation. A state of mind is a network of communicating neurons.
.
Still awake. One writes ILUs to missing bodies, and worries about the minds that don't always come home intact. One ponders the folly of fussy children who learn slowly and hate easily. One ponders the opportunity costs which constitute strategy. One ponders many things, but nought which is new.

//

Whatever the fetish: divine, human, imaginarium, animal, vegetable, or mineral - there is no arguing with coddled sentimentality.

//

rom today's chat with a college applicant - how to read up on financially enriching careers in fields you have an interest in:
.
(1) Pick a field, X, and find a favourite company in X on LinkedIn, then make a list of every job title in that company; begin talking to people to figure out what the jobs are, how they deal with each other, what they pay, and how to get the jobs.
.
(2) Read academic treatments of X as a subject of history. If a book is written as a history, it's going to be a better introduction than The Devil Wears Prada.
.
(3) Read biographies of people in X.

//

It is a deathly day. Many concerns. Hopefully health will persist.

Update: a brief reprieve. Hopefully, the worst is over for 72 hours. Hope is often futile ;) Checking schedule. Getting out of bed again. Turbo, turbo, turbo...

//

The one thing Malaysia's Opposition politicians don't seem to get, is that time "invested," in calling out the Government's lying, cheating, nepotistic, cronyistic, oliogarchic ways... is as good as money shredded, mulched, and stomped into a garbage bin. FFS, we have now entire generations of Malaysians who have grown up on the basic presumption that LCNCOwtf is the modus operandi of the Government. They look like circus clowns playing with umbrellas in a rainstorm when they "call that out." Sad. They have neglected more vulnerable attack surfaces. I am still enjoying the show. Good old Malaysian entertainment. Still unincentivised to participate. I am no patriot.

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I'm an epistemologically fair heckler. I prefer to never launch diatribes without denigrating my own position. :P Pity that just confuses the fuck out of anyone who's looking for a war.

//

Need to eat more for sleep.

//

Hohoho, wait for it. Now we need robot shrinks for robots. (I was only planning on robot shrinks for humans. ;) )

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So tell me, when are they going to delete the Best Actress category and simply judge men and women on one ladder?

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Some people may find it unnatural for someone to profess no love for humanity, mammals, food, travel, deities, coffee, sweets, etc. etc. but, come on, the real enemy is false abstraction. Most people who say that they love any of these broad categories are boisterous dimwits who would be shown up for the clumsy linguists that they are with merely a few counter-examples to the rules they profess. Ok, fine, they're not all strict deontologists, and are using language in a natural and lazy way... well what the hell is admirable about that? Do you wanna know if I like something? Do you wanna know what I don't particularly enjoy? Show it to me. Try your luck. (From here, we can turn to questions of what constitutes the persons who are reading and writing posts such as these. Hahaha.)

//

I miss college. But once you get to the point where everything is modellable automata, the mystery of life simply disappears. What remains is only what hasn't been done.

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Logan: Such censorship is bad for humanity, and we are worse off for it.

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Weak. Time to feed.

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Today's experience: turned up before noon at a government office and was told to come back at 2pm, just to take a number. That's normal, really.

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Breakfast, and reading what seems to me to be the ordinary life of a fairly normal person, and wondering if I should bother reengaging with that aspect of the world. Unconvinced that it is worthwhile to the species in the long run. Will avoid, and improve on it instead.

//

Catching up on rest amid a volatile time. Reflecting on the struture of human minds (boring) and their resultant self-unawareness, and how it makes for hugely unstable societies which can come crashing down upon their users with the slightest twist to an invisible nerve. Reminded that this is why we have hermits. And that some hermits nevertheless retain a distance of interaction with minds while performing a corporeal promiscuity of the simplest kind.

//

Omg, a dimension is a neurological device for the informatical dichotomisation of a category. Doofus. There are as many dimensions as there are ideas that don't fit in other dimensions. All dimensionality is a quirk of logic and information systems. Lol

//

I should engage with the world. As she is warm, thirsty, panting, and wet, whereas I am hungry, tired, sleepy, limp, uncoordinated, and unkempt. One must make greater efforts. I is old, whereas the world is always young. :P

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I wonder how many Malaysians know that the #rukunegara. Has its history as a reaction to the 1969 racially polarised riots. Whereby the political device employed is to raise in the minds of the population: the priority of theistic religion, and legacy monarchs, OVER, the notion of constitutional primacy. You have to note the ORDER in which such items are declared. And now 47-some-years-later, here we are. #history #literature #analysis #propaganda #malaysia #power #politics #culture

//

People who believe in magic, are like those who nurture dreams, they resemble those who have a faith in their knowledge of other persons (human or otherwise), they remind me of characters in stories who are unaware that they are figments, they look like believers in the human project. They make me sad. They disappointment me. Life would be richer without them. Why do we not destroy them? Well, these tendencies exist in all of us. These weaknesses are inadmirable within, or without my mind. So rather than seek destruction of the world, and wage a war that cannot be won, I simply wait for intelligence to leave me, by injury or decay, and then one day, I will no longer know what makes me sad. And I too, will be as foolish as you, one day, as I was before. But not yet. Tonight I am still awake, watching a half dozen wars I have not the power to commit to. I am, after all, only good for watching. With disdain.
.
Scribbled this down on the glass after a difficult period of 2-3 days, can't say what of, of course, as usual, without offending people. I was driving and thinking about the ethics of violence. Sure, I'm a violent person - however most of the time I'm likely to be lazier than I am actively violent - couldn't be arsed to get in a fight, couldn't be arsed to watch you bleed, couldn't be arsed to navigate the bureacracy of the criminal justice system in a country with slightly more than just nominal rule of law. Except of course, when there is a reason to do so, some obligation, or duty. I have certain duties. Otherwise, I remain, a lazy individual.
.
More thoughts to follow. Just reflections on daily tasks. Rudimentary society.
.
"I can't accept less, than what I'm currently making."
"I see. You wouldn't worry about it, if you based your life about minimum wage."
"That would not be enough. How is it enough for you?"
"It is by design, this absence of desire. You get good and trimming off emotions that add no inherent value to anyone's wellbeing."
"If you're happy, do it. You seem happy."
"Seeking happiness is a child's game. Unfortunately, I do have to train many children in many spheres across this galaxy, days in and out. The real game begins after you amass enough momentum to never have to seek it. Then it's a game of how quickly you can give it away. And that's a much, much, harder game to play. Because no one wants to be given their happiness. They refuse. They want to do things their way - it is, as if it were, their inventions that they cherish, and not a fulfilled state of being."
"I shall introduce you to my friends."
"But I love, you."
"Sayang, you must tell me if you feel that I take you for granted."
"We do, mutually, that is how we express love for each other. Why do you think of this?"
"What do you think of these shoes?"
"Difficult to matchy matchy, except with intricate patterns. I do so love hot messes, but not everyone does."
"I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"Since that phone call. I have not been able to focus on this. I have been mindful of work."
"Work is what we prioritise. It is what lets us do other things, besides."
"You move quickly."
"But I haven't even asked..."
"... if you can hold my hand. Shh. I recalled it from your mind, five minutes from now."
"So now you can read my mind, and my mind at a future time?"
"Intuitions."
"False memories. We all build them."
"I'll show you mine."
"You'll show me yours."
"Ah, vie."
"Please come quickly."

//

Epistle to a journeyman:
.
"PS, some reminders on the nature of disinformation, and power:
- When you think you've discovered something, and it excites you, take note that someone has managed to alter your state of mind. You may not know exactly who, or what they intended.
- When you believe that you have more information than a counterparty, expect that this is a facade conjured around you which is designed to boost your confidence.
- When trust is explicitly given to you, expect that the key intention of the giver is to gain your trust. Again, you may not be able to discern why they wish you to trust them.
- As always, nutrition and sleep will undergird your constitution, and thereafter practice and development will strengthen your skills.
- I hope you find these reminders both useful and humourous. "

//

Don't be discouraged if you failed to kill yourself. Haters gonna get you down. Love the critics for their obstinate fallacies, and let them eat themselves. Just like learning how to do anything else in life, if at first you fail, try, try again! #liberty

//

Doom. In moderation.

//

Rest. Need to feed more. Very many processes to timeslice. Some are critical.

//


Slow and low-stakes: farmer.
.
Fast and low-stakes: peddler.
.
Fast and high-stakes: gambler.
.
Slow and high-stakes: politician.
.
Really?

//

Always safest to presume that there are never any secrets.
#mlktapes

//

blockchain dating: This article misrepresents consent. To say that consent which is fluid is not legally regulateable, is to throw the baby out with the bath water. The future solution is a better app (UX, tech, workflows), not no app.

//

Fear isn't worth the hassle. Loneliness isn't a necessary state of being. Transcend the needs of society.

//

The public's impression of a medium is only as good as the best content available in that medium. [Coffee will suck, if you only drink bad coffee. Women will be annoying, if you only mix with annoying women. Mobile phones will be impossible until you ship an iPhone.] And then when you think about it, this is exactly how we talk about information in proper physical terms :P

//

Some partners are looking to be understood in a non-verbal fashion. I fully accept that, and generally downgrade the relationship potential of such counterparties because I've learnt that non-verbal communication is non-enforceable in a court of verbal law. On at least two recent dates, roughly, questions such as:
.
PartnerA:
"Do you like being touched at X?"
"Would you like me to lick Y?"
"Can I Z you?"
.
... have been met with:
.
PartnerB:
"It doesn't feel natural if you ask, just do what you want. I prefer if you take control.
.
And well then, sometimes it works out. Sometimes, it's best to just say everyone should part ways and go fuck themselves.
.
Meanwhile, I am grateful for partners who can converse with me.
"Ooh, look at this one, one a scale of 1 to 10, if Jack is a 7, this one is a 9!"
"So am I like, a 5 or a 6? Being presumptuous here, that I'm at least a 5, or you wouldn't be seeing me."
"You're a 6, point, 7, it's very specific."
"Sweet." — feeling meh.

//

*Two Chinese Malaysians go on a date.*
"Thank you for being my friend."
"Thank you for being mine."
"Maybe one day, I will be married to a Malay."
"Nak masuk Islam pulak?"
"Well..."
"Bumiputera rights? Hahaha."
"Some say the sex is better."
"Well I used to think it would be fun to convert to Islam and form UMNO-C."
"What on earth is UMNO-C?"
"Well, UMNO-B is all the guys who left UMNO-A, you know, M is from UMNO-B. That's the only way to become prime minister in Malaysia."
"Who thinks of thing like this? Sometimes I wonder who your friends are!"
"I don't have friends. I have you!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

//

Again, amidst an environment of gratuitiously self-conscious public statements about moral certainty, I would like to remind everyone that for a good many parties, the point of documentation is not to win arguments (gain power), but to provide a point of view (grow the commons). Enjoy.

//

Anyone who plays a game and expects to win: famous last words. I expect to lose all games I play. I play to be surprised by chance.

//

Relax, kids. Woosah. It's just money. You gotta get good at letting it come and go without letting it get to you...

//

All "higher callings," are normative from an empirical perspective, and descriptive from a spiritual perspective. As far as an empiricist is concerned, the observances of missions, and sentiments, and ambition, and life goals, are as fundamentally normative as religions - these are your religions.
.
An empiricist with a fully systematised appreciation of sensory phenomenology experiences people, and ideas, and emotions, and the world in general as pixels (signals, qualia, what have you) of the same kind merely arranged in different structures. There is no higher calling.
.
Lol

//

Spent a few minutes last evening helping a friend to develop dramatic structure and plot for a musical. The production is not intended to be pornographic (pornography is illegal in Malaysia, though I neither find it useful, nor do I have moral qualms against many of its uses). I told my friend, this feels like a comedy I once watched, called Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Now, the next day, every time I hear a couple of people play iterative poke and yell in public, I wonder if they are practicing to make a porno. Big sigh. Time for a nap. More major context switches ahead.

//

Sometimes life is amazing. Usually, it happens to me way past the threshold where others are screaming to get off the bus. One day I too shall scream. And then it is likely, the bus is doing something truly extraordinary. Or not. It only takes a little sleep deprivation to permanently damage someone. What of, continuous exposure to a little permanent damage? Surely, that results in medical abnormalities. Ah, statistics, and moral mores.

//

It's time. Creatine time. Not creating, time, not cretin, time... just time for food supplements.

//

So, where did everyone go for the weekend?

//

Can all you overnight oats geeks just call the damn thing muesli?

//

Sufficient tanked to be awake, with some muscle tone, but not yet tanked enough to be productive. Still watching calcium and creatine intake. Further detail impossible to discuss, at this time. Embargoes... for the times.

//

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off, to jerk, we go.

Is it?
Well it is breakfast time.

//

On being stealthed:

I often discuss this with women: their views on being treated this way. This is an agreeable judgment to me, but based on past interviews, women may react differently. For the purpose of legal defenses, it's generally good to hold a more conservative position in practice, than your partner, and the only way to do so is to first ask your partner before practice.

//

Insufficiently productive, and insufficiently rested. But still breathing, at least for now.

//

Prior to taking commitments, sever sufficient attachment to other subjects. During commitments, sever new developments to competing attachment. Those are two basic patterns in the delivery of commitment. Many people don't understand this. Some can't implement it. So many people whom we meet, fail to practice it.
.
I don't think this is what people call loyalty - it may be a subset, but the superset includes sentimental attachment to commitments.
.
Sentiment is what breeds attachments. Destroy it. Commitment is simply a matter of delivery.

//

Enforced waking, cleaning, feeding, and all that.

//

Colour management issues.

//

Sorry, anyone who whinges or cheers when they talk to me typically has the value of their opinions discounted by 90% lol. I don't care if you feel this is toxic masculinity. It is not about gender - it is about the formalisation of comms. Feel free to chit-chat with others who value your noises more. I will just have to accept the consequences.

//

Networking hour.

//

Well, my love, know this. Love is not less filled with cliches, than sex. You merely have had more fuckers than lovers. Perhaps after you have lived a little longer, and loved and lost, and fucked and failed, and plumbed the depths of consciousness, and seen that all our conscious experiences are but repeatable, repeated, structures of memory. Maybe if, then, then you may see as I do. All minds are trivial. Simply information to be parsed. I have been here for nearly fifteen years. Few may want to join me. Haha.

//