Saturday, December 26, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Proofreading a legend
Today I bought the Classic NES Series version of Legend of Zelda, and I am welcoming the almost impossible challenge. If you needed any proof that gamers in the 80s are more skilled than we are today, just insert this cartridge into your Game Boy Advance.
I did notice something, though, that was different. If you refrain from pressing the Start button at the title screen, the game proceeds to tell you about the "Legend of Zelda". It's a short legend whose gist is as follows: the prince of darkness steals the Triforce of Power; Princess Zelda, hoping to keep him from getting the other Triforce (of Wisdom), shatters it into 8 pieces, and is herself captured; and Link, the controllable character, must reassemble the Triforce and defeat the prince to save the princess. Sounds easy, right?
Well, when I first saw this game played (on an NES emulator), the text went like this:
When I fired up my Classic NES Series GBA cart and looked at the same text, this is what I saw:
Here are images of the Original Legend, and afterwards the Classic (Revised) Legend.
Different! Obviously, there were obvious flaws in the original text--the name of the prince of darkness has changed from "Gannon" (a spelling that never caught on) to "Ganon", the grammar was much improved, and the idiosyncratic quote marks were removed.
However, upon some reflection, I decided that the "revision" was not perfect. The most radical change in the new revision is the loss of urgency of the message. The original message says to "Go find" the 8 units, Link, to save her, but the revision just says that we "must find" the pieces. Also, I think the revision changed things that really didn't need changing. For example, it adds the detail that it was Ganon's minions who kidnapped Princess Zelda. This may or may not have been the intent of the original version (perhaps Ganon did it himself).
So, I decided what anyone with some proofreading experience and a couple of minutes of time would do: I created my own proofreads of the Legend. They are shown below.
The above was my first attempt. In this I tried to veer not too far off from the wording of the original legend, for example, keeping the words "units" and "divided" the same. I also sought to retain (and maybe even amp up a bit) the urgency by saying "Link! Find the 8 units" in this version.
This second proofread, instead of trying to keep the words of the original, tried to keep the spoken cadence, or rhythm, of the original. The pauses occur more naturally on this one, but I had to sacrifice absolute correctness to keep it in the 24-character line limit. For example, I had to say "breaking it in/8 pieces" instead of "into/8 pieces" which would have been more correct. I also commit the act that led me to denigrate the Classic rewording--I attributed the capturing (here Zelda was "taken") to Ganon's "forces". However, where my first attempt had lots of "holes"--unnecessarily large spaces in order to justify the text, the second attempt was more pleasantly dense.
What do you think? Could you do better? Hermeneutics on a short video game text--hey, so what? How else would you have spent your half an hour? ^_^ The rules are: 1) Don't change the story! 2) You have 10 24-character lines to work with (a total of 240 characters, or roughly one and a half SMS text messages), 3) it should look good with all caps. Submit your answers as comments.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Augustana, "Sweet and Low".
I did notice something, though, that was different. If you refrain from pressing the Start button at the title screen, the game proceeds to tell you about the "Legend of Zelda". It's a short legend whose gist is as follows: the prince of darkness steals the Triforce of Power; Princess Zelda, hoping to keep him from getting the other Triforce (of Wisdom), shatters it into 8 pieces, and is herself captured; and Link, the controllable character, must reassemble the Triforce and defeat the prince to save the princess. Sounds easy, right?
Well, when I first saw this game played (on an NES emulator), the text went like this:
MANY YEARS AGO PRINCE
DARKNESS " GANNON" STOLE
ONE OF THE TRIFORCE WITH
POWER. PRINCESS ZELDA
HAD ONE OF THE TRIFORCE
WITH WISDOM. SHE DIVIDED
IT INTO" 8"UNITS TO HIDE
IT FROM " GANNON" BEFORE
SHE WAS CAPTURED.
GO FIND THE" 8"UNITS
" LINK" TO SAVE HER.
When I fired up my Classic NES Series GBA cart and looked at the same text, this is what I saw:
LONG AGO, GANON, PRINCE
OF DARKNESS, STOLE THE
TRIFORCE OF POWER.
PRINCESS ZELDA OF HYRULE
BROKE THE TRIFORCE OF
WISDOM INTO EIGHT PIECES
AND HID THEM FROM GANON
BEFORE SHE WAS KIDNAPPED
BY GANON'S MINIONS.
LINK, YOU MUST FIND THE
PIECES AND SAVE ZELDA.
Here are images of the Original Legend, and afterwards the Classic (Revised) Legend.
Different! Obviously, there were obvious flaws in the original text--the name of the prince of darkness has changed from "Gannon" (a spelling that never caught on) to "Ganon", the grammar was much improved, and the idiosyncratic quote marks were removed.
However, upon some reflection, I decided that the "revision" was not perfect. The most radical change in the new revision is the loss of urgency of the message. The original message says to "Go find" the 8 units, Link, to save her, but the revision just says that we "must find" the pieces. Also, I think the revision changed things that really didn't need changing. For example, it adds the detail that it was Ganon's minions who kidnapped Princess Zelda. This may or may not have been the intent of the original version (perhaps Ganon did it himself).
So, I decided what anyone with some proofreading experience and a couple of minutes of time would do: I created my own proofreads of the Legend. They are shown below.
LONG AGO, THE PRINCE OF
DARKNESS, GANON, STOLE
THE TRIFORCE OF POWER.
PRINCESS ZELDA DIVIDED
THE TRIFORCE OF WISDOM
INTO 8 UNITS TO HIDE IT
FROM GANON, BEFORE SHE
WAS CAPTURED.
LINK! FIND THE 8 UNITS
TO SAVE PRINCESS ZELDA
The above was my first attempt. In this I tried to veer not too far off from the wording of the original legend, for example, keeping the words "units" and "divided" the same. I also sought to retain (and maybe even amp up a bit) the urgency by saying "Link! Find the 8 units" in this version.
MANY YEARS AGO GANON THE
PRINCE OF DARKNESS STOLE
THE TRIFORCE OF POWER.
PRINCESS ZELDA HAD THE
TRIFORCE OF WISDOM. SHE
HID IT BY BREAKING IT IN
8 PIECES, BUT SHE WAS
TAKEN BY GANON'S FORCES.
FIND THE PIECES, LINK,
AND SAVE ZELDA.
This second proofread, instead of trying to keep the words of the original, tried to keep the spoken cadence, or rhythm, of the original. The pauses occur more naturally on this one, but I had to sacrifice absolute correctness to keep it in the 24-character line limit. For example, I had to say "breaking it in/8 pieces" instead of "into/8 pieces" which would have been more correct. I also commit the act that led me to denigrate the Classic rewording--I attributed the capturing (here Zelda was "taken") to Ganon's "forces". However, where my first attempt had lots of "holes"--unnecessarily large spaces in order to justify the text, the second attempt was more pleasantly dense.
What do you think? Could you do better? Hermeneutics on a short video game text--hey, so what? How else would you have spent your half an hour? ^_^ The rules are: 1) Don't change the story! 2) You have 10 24-character lines to work with (a total of 240 characters, or roughly one and a half SMS text messages), 3) it should look good with all caps. Submit your answers as comments.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Augustana, "Sweet and Low".
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
In passing
Today, my Geocities site, and perhaps millions of others' Geocities sites, some of them maintained and others not, quietly passed into history. The directories were destroyed, and any Geocities link now redirects to an offer for Yahoo! hosting.
Thankfully I was able to mirror my two sites in time (as Yahoo! sent all Homesteaders a cautionary email) and the sites now reside in my personal web space. But what of the others? What about that Led Zeppelin tribute website someone built in 1999 in honor for the first time she heard "Kashmir" as a pirated MP3 on Winamp? What about that site owned by a socially awkward teenage boy, who, since everyone else did, tYpEd LiKe tHiS and listed his top three school crushes but had to give them pseudonyms? (And before you ask, no, I did not do this... ^_^) What about what must have been thousands of resumes, hundreds of cookbooks, guitar tab sites, collections of pictures of precocious dogs, family trees, FAQs, tutorials for obscure programs, and the like, whose owners have moved on to other things like Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, or who have forgotten that they even had a website on Geocities? All that information--all that knowledge--is gone.
It would be foolhardy to compare the demise of Geocities to that of the Library of Alexandria. But it was the same kind of loss. Supposedly the Library had knowledge about anything and everything the Western civilizations knew up to that point in time, but groups of individuals who were misguided in their ideology (OK, OK, some of them were Christians) felt that its status as a pagan temple trumped its containing precious human knowledge, and so felt the need to take it down.
Similarly, homesteaders were allowed to post whatever they wanted however they wanted on Geocities, so long as you knew HTML and were willing to type into a text box all day to get it. But with the rise of social networking sites, where people are forced into talking only about themselves (and not what they know, for instance, about matrix algebra or what the Eagles were really saying when you played "Hotel California" backwards), Yahoo! had a change of heart:
To me, the closing of Geocities is an end of an era. When I started my "online presence", I came upon pages upon pages of people who were desperately wanting to share what they knew about the world. Now, I'm not saying that the websites were perfect, either; this was a time in the thick of the Browser Wars, before usability guidelines were agreed upon, and so people used rainbow text colors, large animated GIFs, black backgrounds beneath dark blue text (not unreliable markers for goth/emo sites), marquees, website layouts that shrugged off the boundaries of your 800-by-600 screen, frames vs. no-frames, and so on. (And plus, it was never more true then than it ever was that you shouldn't believe everything you hear on the Internet.) But you got the sense that people cared about what they wrote down, and they wanted you to know also. These were the days of free websites, visible counters, webrings, email pals, and the like, where it was the web developers who decided what you learned about, and when we said web developers, we meant all of us. And perhaps sometimes we talked about ourselves.
But the new paradigm--the new ideology--is to share things about yourself. You are the most interesting person you know... why would you not want to write about it? So the Web of today is cleaner, easier to read, more usable for keeping in touch with friends and colleagues, and a whole lot easier to use.
Perhaps it was a trade-off. But at least in my book, we end up on the losing side.
Oh, well, there's still Angelfire. ^_^ (Wonder when these guys will close, too?)
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Owl City, "Fireflies". I'm gonna write a "Why I like this song" on this as soon as I have time. But I guess you won't see it on Geocities.
P.S. The title of this post links to my homestead
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Code/4023
As you can see, you get the nag prompt to join Yahoo! hosting. I told you they're all gone.
Thankfully I was able to mirror my two sites in time (as Yahoo! sent all Homesteaders a cautionary email) and the sites now reside in my personal web space. But what of the others? What about that Led Zeppelin tribute website someone built in 1999 in honor for the first time she heard "Kashmir" as a pirated MP3 on Winamp? What about that site owned by a socially awkward teenage boy, who, since everyone else did, tYpEd LiKe tHiS and listed his top three school crushes but had to give them pseudonyms? (And before you ask, no, I did not do this... ^_^) What about what must have been thousands of resumes, hundreds of cookbooks, guitar tab sites, collections of pictures of precocious dogs, family trees, FAQs, tutorials for obscure programs, and the like, whose owners have moved on to other things like Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, or who have forgotten that they even had a website on Geocities? All that information--all that knowledge--is gone.
It would be foolhardy to compare the demise of Geocities to that of the Library of Alexandria. But it was the same kind of loss. Supposedly the Library had knowledge about anything and everything the Western civilizations knew up to that point in time, but groups of individuals who were misguided in their ideology (OK, OK, some of them were Christians) felt that its status as a pagan temple trumped its containing precious human knowledge, and so felt the need to take it down.
Similarly, homesteaders were allowed to post whatever they wanted however they wanted on Geocities, so long as you knew HTML and were willing to type into a text box all day to get it. But with the rise of social networking sites, where people are forced into talking only about themselves (and not what they know, for instance, about matrix algebra or what the Eagles were really saying when you played "Hotel California" backwards), Yahoo! had a change of heart:
However, we have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways. Beginning on October 26, 2009, you will no longer be able to use GeoCities to maintain a free presence online — but we're excited about the other services we have designed to help you connect with friends and family and share your activities and interests. —Why is Geocities closing?In short, if you want a "presence online" but are not self-centered, then you're going to have to buy webspace.
To me, the closing of Geocities is an end of an era. When I started my "online presence", I came upon pages upon pages of people who were desperately wanting to share what they knew about the world. Now, I'm not saying that the websites were perfect, either; this was a time in the thick of the Browser Wars, before usability guidelines were agreed upon, and so people used rainbow text colors, large animated GIFs, black backgrounds beneath dark blue text (not unreliable markers for goth/emo sites), marquees, website layouts that shrugged off the boundaries of your 800-by-600 screen, frames vs. no-frames, and so on. (And plus, it was never more true then than it ever was that you shouldn't believe everything you hear on the Internet.) But you got the sense that people cared about what they wrote down, and they wanted you to know also. These were the days of free websites, visible counters, webrings, email pals, and the like, where it was the web developers who decided what you learned about, and when we said web developers, we meant all of us. And perhaps sometimes we talked about ourselves.
But the new paradigm--the new ideology--is to share things about yourself. You are the most interesting person you know... why would you not want to write about it? So the Web of today is cleaner, easier to read, more usable for keeping in touch with friends and colleagues, and a whole lot easier to use.
Perhaps it was a trade-off. But at least in my book, we end up on the losing side.
Oh, well, there's still Angelfire. ^_^ (Wonder when these guys will close, too?)
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Owl City, "Fireflies". I'm gonna write a "Why I like this song" on this as soon as I have time. But I guess you won't see it on Geocities.
P.S. The title of this post links to my homestead
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Code/4023
As you can see, you get the nag prompt to join Yahoo! hosting. I told you they're all gone.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Island-bowling, Frame 2
I was looking at the weather channel on TV earlier, and two thoughts suddenly occurred to me:
- The blue color that stands in for the Pacific Ocean in these loops is a false color. I mean that when the infrared data comes from satellites (or however they get the cloud info), they actually don't perceive the seas as blue. That's a color added to the map to make it seem more realistic. In a way I've known this already, but somehow I was alerted to it the last time I looked at it.
- The image of typhoons barrelling westward toward the Marianas Islands looks like a frame of tenpins. This is why my new term for the typhoon season is "island-bowling".
Batten down the hatches, ladies and gentlemen. I'll see you all after the all-clear.
Song in my head: Jason DeRulo, "Whatcha Say".
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Septemberians bash
This is the first post I am typing from my newest computer, an MSI Wind U123 netbook that I got for myself on my birthday. I really thought that I would use my old laptop until I graduated, but the “k” key on it gave out on me a bit too early… ^_^ Is it just me, or does my new netbook just pounce on my old laptop in performance and price? I thought so until I realized that my old laptop is more than three and a half years old!
I am trying to throw a party for myself and all those who were born in the month of September. If this describes you and you are free this Friday, please call or text or email me so that I could give you directions or a map. The two hardest things to do for a party are:
- to get enough people to come
- to make enough provisions (food, drinks, etc.) for all those people
September seems to be a really popular month to be born. Well, amongst my friends, at least.
Thanks for reading.
P.S. You know you’re in Agana when you find yourself having to parallel-park. ^_^
Song in my head: Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody”. I don’t know for certain whether I already had this song in my head previously, but I wouldn’t care too much as it’s a pretty good song.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Day # 9131, or, The Time Traveler's Dilemma
Actually, it's already Day #9132... ^_^ But day 9131 turned out to be so eventful that I had no time to post over here! Anyway, perhaps the pictures will do the talking.
Today I watched The Time Traveler's Wife with my family, and I have to say that it is an interesting movie. My favorite part of the movie was anytime anyone said the words, "Everything's going to be all right" (or "OK" or any version thereof). Normally, when someone says this to someone else who is having a tough time, there is no way the first someone could really mean it. I mean, really mean it. Sure, I can tell it to someone close I've known for a long time and whose troubles I am well aware of, and even perhaps whose troubles I've encountered in my life in the past as well. But when it comes down to it, I have zero authority to say those words, because I myself do not know how things will turn out. In the movie, though, whenever someone said those words, that someone had some authority over the statement.
Before I went into the movie, I thought the main conflict within it was going to be a series of tensions between wanting to tell the truth and wanting to reassure the other. But it didn't turn out quite that way at all. What was especially interesting was that the first time in the movie we hear the words "Everything's going to be all right" it comes from the (future) wife, the non-time-traveler. She speaks the truth, of course, because she has already met the time-traveler, but the one she met was older (and obviously wiser and doing better for himself).
One of the humanizing realizations of the movie occurs when you realize that the time-traveler is not much better off than we are--although he can see his future, he can do nothing to change it. But this also is part of the rules of the literary game, because everyone--wisely--sooner or later catches on to this fact really quickly and turn their energies towards the small things that make each other's lives more... what's the word? Livable.
The movie ends up having a different kind of tension--the characters end up in a balancing act where they try to prepare each other for the many eventualities of life. In this environment, "Everything's going to be all right" ends up being true, no matter who says it. And, paradoxically, because of this moral of consoling each other in the small things, the movie ends up teaching us that it's OK to say those words to someone who is going through a tough time, even though you have absolutely no idea how things will actually turn out--as long as you are willing to be part of the solution.
It must be nice to hear from someone who actually knows that "everything's going to be all right." Even if that someone knows he or she is lying.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Broken Social Circle, "Love Will Tear Us Apart". This is a cover of a Joy Division song that was the wedding reception formal dance in the movie. Sounds imo.
Today I watched The Time Traveler's Wife with my family, and I have to say that it is an interesting movie. My favorite part of the movie was anytime anyone said the words, "Everything's going to be all right" (or "OK" or any version thereof). Normally, when someone says this to someone else who is having a tough time, there is no way the first someone could really mean it. I mean, really mean it. Sure, I can tell it to someone close I've known for a long time and whose troubles I am well aware of, and even perhaps whose troubles I've encountered in my life in the past as well. But when it comes down to it, I have zero authority to say those words, because I myself do not know how things will turn out. In the movie, though, whenever someone said those words, that someone had some authority over the statement.
Before I went into the movie, I thought the main conflict within it was going to be a series of tensions between wanting to tell the truth and wanting to reassure the other. But it didn't turn out quite that way at all. What was especially interesting was that the first time in the movie we hear the words "Everything's going to be all right" it comes from the (future) wife, the non-time-traveler. She speaks the truth, of course, because she has already met the time-traveler, but the one she met was older (and obviously wiser and doing better for himself).
One of the humanizing realizations of the movie occurs when you realize that the time-traveler is not much better off than we are--although he can see his future, he can do nothing to change it. But this also is part of the rules of the literary game, because everyone--wisely--sooner or later catches on to this fact really quickly and turn their energies towards the small things that make each other's lives more... what's the word? Livable.
The movie ends up having a different kind of tension--the characters end up in a balancing act where they try to prepare each other for the many eventualities of life. In this environment, "Everything's going to be all right" ends up being true, no matter who says it. And, paradoxically, because of this moral of consoling each other in the small things, the movie ends up teaching us that it's OK to say those words to someone who is going through a tough time, even though you have absolutely no idea how things will actually turn out--as long as you are willing to be part of the solution.
It must be nice to hear from someone who actually knows that "everything's going to be all right." Even if that someone knows he or she is lying.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Broken Social Circle, "Love Will Tear Us Apart". This is a cover of a Joy Division song that was the wedding reception formal dance in the movie. Sounds imo.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Wikipedia random walk, no. 2
Black pudding
Bubble and squeak
Hash (food)
Steak sauce
Full breakfast
Philology
Time immemorial
Immemorial nobility
Hidalgo
Jugging
Kipper
Solomon Gundy
Solomon Grundy
Roud Folk Song Index
Scarborough Fair
Sark
The Elfin Knight
Elf
Williams syndrome
Argininosuccinate lyase
Urea cycle
Song in my head: Simon and Garfunkel, "Scarborough Fair".
Bubble and squeak
Hash (food)
Steak sauce
Full breakfast
Philology
Time immemorial
Immemorial nobility
Hidalgo
Jugging
Kipper
Solomon Gundy
Solomon Grundy
Roud Folk Song Index
Scarborough Fair
Sark
The Elfin Knight
Elf
Williams syndrome
Argininosuccinate lyase
Urea cycle
Song in my head: Simon and Garfunkel, "Scarborough Fair".
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Sleeplessness
Lately I've been skipping out on sleep for spurious reasons. It might actually be detrimental to my concentration to the rest of the day (which has already happened last week, more than once). So why do I do it? I don't know. Sometimes I get this hard-to-fight feeling that I might miss something. Unfounded, of course, but so are most irrational feelings.
In other news I am getting better at jump rope, but my gait is still the same idiosyncratic skip-kick my sister pointed out to me the first time I tried it. At least I'm clearing the ground enough to let the rope slip through. Hopefully I'll get good enough to last through "Jesus Walks". ^_^
Thanks for reading.
This post was brought to you in part by Microsoft's On-Screen Keyboard, because the "k" key on my laptop has ceased to function. It's spurred me on to move up my decision to buy a netbook. ^_^ Perhaps it's a good thing; Echo (the laptop I am typing this on) has hung on with me for more than 3 years now, which I'm told is more than two lifetimes for this kind of laptop. Hopefully I can still get it fixed; if and when this happens I'm loading Ubuntu on this.
In other news I am getting better at jump rope, but my gait is still the same idiosyncratic skip-kick my sister pointed out to me the first time I tried it. At least I'm clearing the ground enough to let the rope slip through. Hopefully I'll get good enough to last through "Jesus Walks". ^_^
Thanks for reading.
This post was brought to you in part by Microsoft's On-Screen Keyboard, because the "k" key on my laptop has ceased to function. It's spurred me on to move up my decision to buy a netbook. ^_^ Perhaps it's a good thing; Echo (the laptop I am typing this on) has hung on with me for more than 3 years now, which I'm told is more than two lifetimes for this kind of laptop. Hopefully I can still get it fixed; if and when this happens I'm loading Ubuntu on this.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Skip rope
I bought myself jump rope today, and up until now it still sits there, waiting for me to put it to good use. (Or, in this case, sitting on my shoulder--like I'm wearing it as an aiguillette.) It smells a bit too much like plastic, but it seems usable. I will have to try using it after my post.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Hotdog, "Bongga Ka Day".
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Hotdog, "Bongga Ka Day".
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Seventeen syllables, No. 76
Please re-rack those clothes
After you tire yourself out
From lifting these weights.
After you tire yourself out
From lifting these weights.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Synesthete
I'm thrilled to find out today that Marian McPartland is still alive. In recent weeks I've realized what I really enjoyed about her show on NPR: she and her guests kind of play off of each other in a way that makes me think neither of them expect the gloriousness of the sound that they produce. Since Marian can bounce off any style she hears, and her guests represent so many diverse jazz styles, there really is no telling what you're going to hear every show, except that it's probably going to be talking and excellent jazz.
Now I don't think I would ever get to play with Marian: a) I'm not a jazz pianist and I don't think I ever will be, and b) I don't think she'll be alive long enough to wait for me to make it big. But that's not going to be a problem for her; her immortality is almost more than ensured.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Black Eyed Peas, "Boom Boom Pow".
Now I don't think I would ever get to play with Marian: a) I'm not a jazz pianist and I don't think I ever will be, and b) I don't think she'll be alive long enough to wait for me to make it big. But that's not going to be a problem for her; her immortality is almost more than ensured.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Black Eyed Peas, "Boom Boom Pow".
Monday, August 10, 2009
Reorganization
Wow, my 200th post here, and all I have to say is how messy my room and vehicle are. ^_^ Tomorrow I'll hope to put a dent in that situation.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean". This is fun to do on an elliptical machine.
Long Way Down: 227 (20090806)
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean". This is fun to do on an elliptical machine.
Long Way Down: 227 (20090806)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Deadline
Now that it's August, it's crunch time for my projects. I gave myself until the end of this month to finish my summer projects. If I don't finish any of them, I'll shelve them till I graduate.
A few weeks ago, my order for Euclid's Elements arrived, and I went to work trying out the constructions for myself. It's very enlightening to see the way Euclid worded certain things. One of the biggest realizations I had was that Euclid's text is not as rigorous as I first expected.
When I read Proposition 4 in Book I, for example, he says that if the three sides of one triangle are the same length as the three sides on another triangle, then the two triangles are equal. Now that sounds a lot like the SSS Postulate, doesn't it? But the SSS Postulate is a postulate, not a theorem to be proved. So I looked at how Euclid proved his proposition, and surprise! he says something to the effect of, "Well, look at them! If you lined them up they'd match up."
So with this in mind I continue to try out the propositions, thinking, "So hey, we've gotten better at this stuff over time." What's stopping me from doing the same?
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain, "Blame It".
A few weeks ago, my order for Euclid's Elements arrived, and I went to work trying out the constructions for myself. It's very enlightening to see the way Euclid worded certain things. One of the biggest realizations I had was that Euclid's text is not as rigorous as I first expected.
When I read Proposition 4 in Book I, for example, he says that if the three sides of one triangle are the same length as the three sides on another triangle, then the two triangles are equal. Now that sounds a lot like the SSS Postulate, doesn't it? But the SSS Postulate is a postulate, not a theorem to be proved. So I looked at how Euclid proved his proposition, and surprise! he says something to the effect of, "Well, look at them! If you lined them up they'd match up."
So with this in mind I continue to try out the propositions, thinking, "So hey, we've gotten better at this stuff over time." What's stopping me from doing the same?
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain, "Blame It".
Friday, July 24, 2009
Liberation
What were you doing on Liberation Day? This is what I did.
Song in my head: Tchaikovsky, "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy". If you're going to YouTube, don't miss the trip-hop, dance, and electronic covers of this song. ^_^
Song in my head: Tchaikovsky, "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy". If you're going to YouTube, don't miss the trip-hop, dance, and electronic covers of this song. ^_^
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Liberation
First of all, Happy Liberation Day, everyone.
The word "liberation" has so many meanings today. For starters, on Guam they say that on 21 July they were liberated from Japanese control and placed back into American control. (I know, right? You ask them this time.) Also, this year being the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's landing on the Moon, we as a people were given a break from all the Cold War fear and had cause to be hopeful after all. We as human beings (maybe) stopped looking furtively at each other and became free to all look up together.
Well, I wasn't yet alive back in 1969. So it is with relish that I'm tuning in to We Choose the Moon to hear the audio exchanged between Houston and the Spacecraft. It makes me feel as if I were tuning in to a piece of much older electronic equipment to hear voices coming from more than 200,000 miles away. I'm planning on staying up to get to the tape where Neil Armstrong says, "That's one small step...", then I intend to go out to that section of Marine Corps Drive in Hagat'na to check out (and maybe photograph) the floats and the camps. Will it rain? Nobody knows, man, and that's what makes it exciting.
A random thought came to me as I was driving around today. Has it ever occurred to anyone out there who is a literary type that our preoccupation for aliens starting in the 20th Century could have been a message of hope? What I mean is, if people had to turn to beings from other planets to get aliens, does that mean that we ran out of humans to alienate? That maybe the "Otherness" of every human out there just ran out, and we were ready to see every human being as part of our in-group?
OK, just thinking out loud. Feel free to shoot this down... ^_^ But thanks for reading, at any rate.
Song in my head: The Pussycat Dolls, "I Hate This Part (Right Here)".
All right, now don't bother me. I'm trying to hear what Buzz is saying.
The word "liberation" has so many meanings today. For starters, on Guam they say that on 21 July they were liberated from Japanese control and placed back into American control. (I know, right? You ask them this time.) Also, this year being the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's landing on the Moon, we as a people were given a break from all the Cold War fear and had cause to be hopeful after all. We as human beings (maybe) stopped looking furtively at each other and became free to all look up together.
Well, I wasn't yet alive back in 1969. So it is with relish that I'm tuning in to We Choose the Moon to hear the audio exchanged between Houston and the Spacecraft. It makes me feel as if I were tuning in to a piece of much older electronic equipment to hear voices coming from more than 200,000 miles away. I'm planning on staying up to get to the tape where Neil Armstrong says, "That's one small step...", then I intend to go out to that section of Marine Corps Drive in Hagat'na to check out (and maybe photograph) the floats and the camps. Will it rain? Nobody knows, man, and that's what makes it exciting.
A random thought came to me as I was driving around today. Has it ever occurred to anyone out there who is a literary type that our preoccupation for aliens starting in the 20th Century could have been a message of hope? What I mean is, if people had to turn to beings from other planets to get aliens, does that mean that we ran out of humans to alienate? That maybe the "Otherness" of every human out there just ran out, and we were ready to see every human being as part of our in-group?
OK, just thinking out loud. Feel free to shoot this down... ^_^ But thanks for reading, at any rate.
Song in my head: The Pussycat Dolls, "I Hate This Part (Right Here)".
All right, now don't bother me. I'm trying to hear what Buzz is saying.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The end of the internet
I got an email today that said that GeoCities was closing sometime in October. It's been a good run, I guess. I did not realize how prolific I had been with GeoCities websites. But, it's all the same; I'd have to either take them somewhere else or lose them forever.
And here I thought that the link to my last known homestead (SiliconValley/Code/4023) would last forever.
Do you know where your Homestead was?
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Michael Jackson, "Human Nature".
P.S. In reference to the title, my favorite "end of the internet" page is at http://mdesmond.com/end-of-the-internet/.
And here I thought that the link to my last known homestead (SiliconValley/Code/4023) would last forever.
Do you know where your Homestead was?
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Michael Jackson, "Human Nature".
P.S. In reference to the title, my favorite "end of the internet" page is at http://mdesmond.com/end-of-the-internet/.
Friday, June 26, 2009
"Carry me to the river Jordan"
You know, since he died at a relatively early age, it would've been appropriate here to say that "the youth is wasted on the young". But that was obviously not true of him. He drank up his youth all the way to the last drop.
Rest in peace, Michael Jackson. You know this now, that I always believed in your music, and I'll still be waiting on your comeback. ^_^
Song in my head: Jackson Five, "I Want You Back". My favorite song that has him on it.
Rest in peace, Michael Jackson. You know this now, that I always believed in your music, and I'll still be waiting on your comeback. ^_^
Song in my head: Jackson Five, "I Want You Back". My favorite song that has him on it.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Scratchwork
The singular upheaval in the arrangement of my room has given me an opportunity to look at all those many pieces of paper I had stored away in those semi-neat folders. I'm finding that I am throwing away a good percentage of them. This is both good and bad. It's good because I need to reclaim space in my room. And it's bad because if I kept it at first and then now I'm throwing it away, that means I've already forgotten why I kept it in the first place.
But now I have an almost neverending stack of scratch paper.
If I borrowed anything from you ever, hold on; I've found it and I will return it to you as soon as I see you again.
Song in my head: Fred Astaire, "The Way You Look Tonight". I heard it when I saw Swing Time (1936). I rather enjoyed the movie, even though it was about people falling in love. That was surprising.
But now I have an almost neverending stack of scratch paper.
If I borrowed anything from you ever, hold on; I've found it and I will return it to you as soon as I see you again.
Song in my head: Fred Astaire, "The Way You Look Tonight". I heard it when I saw Swing Time (1936). I rather enjoyed the movie, even though it was about people falling in love. That was surprising.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Status update
I guess it was wrong for me to assume that other people will remember me the way I remember them. First of all, there's more of them.
Song in my head: Keahiwai, "Where Did Our Love Go".
Song in my head: Keahiwai, "Where Did Our Love Go".
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Skill set
The other day, I was waiting in line at a fast-food restaurant. When it came time for me to order, an attendant with the "drive-thru" headset on told me, "Kindly hold, I will be right with you." I was in no hurry, so it did not bother me.
What she did in the following minute and a half was so incredible that even now I can't believe I saw it all. She proceeded to take three orders through the drive-thru headset, two of them one after the other, and the other she inherited from another person at the console who had to leave. I knew she was listening to the headset because of the distant look in her eyes, yet the rest of her danced across that greasy foodservice-grade floor with such effortlessness it was as if she had the whole thing choreographed. Her hands knew instinctively where everything was: the handles and knobs to the hot surfaces of the trays, the point-of-sale console, the debit card device where she had to swipe for two payments, and the boxes. Before I even realized, she handed off three finished packages to two different places: two to two different attendanta who were tasked with giving it to someone who had parked, and the other two out the window. The amazing thing was she remembered the appearance of both cars, and which order belonged to which car.
After this mystifying performance, she went back to the counter and smiled. "How may I help you?" I couldn't help it; before I placed my order I said, "First of all, that was amazing." ^_^
She demonstrated something that I already knew for a long time: Everyone has a skill set--some certain number of things that a person is good at. The attendant from the other day is not likely to know how to play the piano. But her manner at the service floor of that restaurant is something I could never hope to duplicate, even if I had been working there a full year. Why? Perhaps I am just a naturally slow person, who wouldn't be able to handle something like that. In fact, if I worked there, I predict I would be stuck out back at the kitchen, cooking. Or maybe not even that; I'd probably be washing utensils and loading the stockroom.
One of my professors laments that he does not have enough time in his life to study everything he was interested in. After having reflected on that notion for a while, I can now say that I agree.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Rascal Flatts, "Here Comes Goodbye".
What she did in the following minute and a half was so incredible that even now I can't believe I saw it all. She proceeded to take three orders through the drive-thru headset, two of them one after the other, and the other she inherited from another person at the console who had to leave. I knew she was listening to the headset because of the distant look in her eyes, yet the rest of her danced across that greasy foodservice-grade floor with such effortlessness it was as if she had the whole thing choreographed. Her hands knew instinctively where everything was: the handles and knobs to the hot surfaces of the trays, the point-of-sale console, the debit card device where she had to swipe for two payments, and the boxes. Before I even realized, she handed off three finished packages to two different places: two to two different attendanta who were tasked with giving it to someone who had parked, and the other two out the window. The amazing thing was she remembered the appearance of both cars, and which order belonged to which car.
After this mystifying performance, she went back to the counter and smiled. "How may I help you?" I couldn't help it; before I placed my order I said, "First of all, that was amazing." ^_^
She demonstrated something that I already knew for a long time: Everyone has a skill set--some certain number of things that a person is good at. The attendant from the other day is not likely to know how to play the piano. But her manner at the service floor of that restaurant is something I could never hope to duplicate, even if I had been working there a full year. Why? Perhaps I am just a naturally slow person, who wouldn't be able to handle something like that. In fact, if I worked there, I predict I would be stuck out back at the kitchen, cooking. Or maybe not even that; I'd probably be washing utensils and loading the stockroom.
One of my professors laments that he does not have enough time in his life to study everything he was interested in. After having reflected on that notion for a while, I can now say that I agree.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Rascal Flatts, "Here Comes Goodbye".
Monday, June 1, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Why I like this song, No. 2
Today on "Why I like this song" I thought I'd write about a song that to my knowledge wasn't released as a single (and therefore probably never made it to radio anywhere). This kind of song is fascinating because most of the time record executives have a big say on what becomes a single from an album. The fact that this song was not a single meant that either the composer or the executives or both decided that it would not be fit for radio. Let's do Jason Mraz, "Beautiful Mess".
At least on Guam, the only singles I heard from We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things were an updated "I'm Yours" (which I already discussed earlier, though not on Why I like this song) and "Lucky" with Colbie Caillat. So when I heard "Beautiful Mess" I was pleasantly surprised.
Jason Mraz has a (late 90's style) rap- or hip-hop-like cadence to his written lyrics; this is characterized by the meter or rhythm of his words varying almost every line. This song is no different, demonstrating a meter that fits the words, instead of words fitting a meter:
If you tried fitting these words in the second verse to the actual cadence he sings, it would probably look something like this:
It's a proper--if highly irregular--meter, because the stresses are in the right places.
But what really makes this song for me is the first part of the chorus:
He repeats the word "kind" three times as the beginning of the middle three lines, all with a stabbing quality to them, singing them in high G-sharps and an F-sharp for the last one, harmonizing with the E, G#m, and F#m in the guitar. It's like he is reacting to being stabbed repeatedly with a sharp knife slowly going into him. Whenever I hear this part of the song it makes my eyes well up, because the words, melody, and chords work together towards an effect that translates to the listener as "puti korason," Chamorro for heartache. And who said sound-pictures are dead? ^_^
The whole song itself is actually very easy to play; four-chorders out there would be delighted in its basic progression: E G#m F#m A -> B, and repeat. The "beautiful mess" chords are just "A / B /" then repeat. Incidentally, it felt as if a quarter to a third of the songs in the rest of the album used the same chord progression (albeit in different keys). The creativity is injected in how the song shapes itself around the words he wants to say.
Is it imo? Every time I hear it I become more convinced that it is. The "relationship" being staged is far from perfect, but for the speaker, the fact that he is still hurt by her verbal blades proves to him that there is still something beautiful and worth continuing:
Thanks for reading.
At least on Guam, the only singles I heard from We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things were an updated "I'm Yours" (which I already discussed earlier, though not on Why I like this song) and "Lucky" with Colbie Caillat. So when I heard "Beautiful Mess" I was pleasantly surprised.
Jason Mraz has a (late 90's style) rap- or hip-hop-like cadence to his written lyrics; this is characterized by the meter or rhythm of his words varying almost every line. This song is no different, demonstrating a meter that fits the words, instead of words fitting a meter:
Although you're biased, I love your advice
Your comebacks are quick and probably have to do with your insecurities
There's no shame in being crazy depending on how you take these
Words they're paraphrasing, this relationship we're staging
If you tried fitting these words in the second verse to the actual cadence he sings, it would probably look something like this:
Al - though you're biased, I love your advice
Your comebacks are quick and probably have to do with your insecurities
There's no shame in be - ing crazy depending on how you take these
Words they're paraphrasing, this relationship we're staging
It's a proper--if highly irregular--meter, because the stresses are in the right places.
But what really makes this song for me is the first part of the chorus:
Well, it
kind of hurts when the
kind of words you write
kind of turn them-
selves into knives
He repeats the word "kind" three times as the beginning of the middle three lines, all with a stabbing quality to them, singing them in high G-sharps and an F-sharp for the last one, harmonizing with the E, G#m, and F#m in the guitar. It's like he is reacting to being stabbed repeatedly with a sharp knife slowly going into him. Whenever I hear this part of the song it makes my eyes well up, because the words, melody, and chords work together towards an effect that translates to the listener as "puti korason," Chamorro for heartache. And who said sound-pictures are dead? ^_^
The whole song itself is actually very easy to play; four-chorders out there would be delighted in its basic progression: E G#m F#m A -> B, and repeat. The "beautiful mess" chords are just "A / B /" then repeat. Incidentally, it felt as if a quarter to a third of the songs in the rest of the album used the same chord progression (albeit in different keys). The creativity is injected in how the song shapes itself around the words he wants to say.
Is it imo? Every time I hear it I become more convinced that it is. The "relationship" being staged is far from perfect, but for the speaker, the fact that he is still hurt by her verbal blades proves to him that there is still something beautiful and worth continuing:
And through
timeless words and
priceless pictures we'll
fly like birds
not of this Earth.
And
tides they turn and
hearts disfigure but
that's no concern when we're
wounded together.
Thanks for reading.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Past time
While I was walking by myself maybe about a week ago, I stumbled across a random thought. I cannot remember the thought that ignited it anymore, but the notion is this: We should never assume that the past was a strictly simpler situation than the present. This immediately seemed true, and I started to wonder how the complexity around us could be compared with the complexity of the life of someone living in the 18th or 19th Century. For example, a twentysomething from the 19th Century would not have known or even comprehended what a computer was, but then again, he or she wouldn't have had to keep up with upwards of a hundred "friends" on some social networking site.
It seems to be true that while progress is certainly being made, there are things that remain the same, allowing our brains to relate these to the new things.
I have a feeling I wasn't the first person to ever say that. ^_^
Song in my head: Maino, featuring T-Pain, "All of the Above".
It seems to be true that while progress is certainly being made, there are things that remain the same, allowing our brains to relate these to the new things.
I have a feeling I wasn't the first person to ever say that. ^_^
Song in my head: Maino, featuring T-Pain, "All of the Above".
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Why I like this song, No. 1
I don't know whether this is going to be a regular feature of my blog (let alone whether it will ever be repeated ^_^) but tonight after hearing the recording of Cueshe, "Back to Me", I suddenly stumbled upon the reason I liked this song. (Incidentally, I did post a comment on the video that is an outline of what I am going to say here, but I found that "the margin could not contain the proof", as it were.)
There is a certain feeling I get whenever I listen to it or play it. I cannot think of a single word to describe it, but it's somewhere between loneliness and an almost insane hopefulness and yearning.
Most of the drama between these two emotions is illustrated in the contrast between the song's lyrics and the type of music accompanying it. It begins with a four-note motif that alternates between Esus2 and E, which appears to be setting up the song to be a love song--in effect, a love that is ongoing. This creates tension with the words first sung over it:
(Chords are solely my interpretation.) Oh, so the love was lost. Well, this is weird, because we have already been cued in to thinking about ongoing, current love by the opening motif.
Also, the verse chords resolve to E major (as can be seen in the fragment above) but are mainly the minor chords (C#m and F#m being the main chords in this section). But when we get to the chorus, this happens:
We get an explosive E major, coupled with the almost screamed words "Can you FEEL me? See me falling away!" The effect is jarring because we finally realize what kind of a song this is--she isn't coming back, but she still "need[s] to come home / Back to me." Then the intro comes back in, washing it all away with that hopeful strain of E's and Esus2's.
So the story that unfolds for me is this: The speaker here is at the brink of despair of ever seeing his loved one again, having just realized that he does love her after all. But kind of figuring they'll never be together again, his yearning to see her again inexplicably increases. Maybe, as in fiction, the improbable should happen and they will end up together again. But as time passes, that hope not only becomes more distant, but also more fantastic, insisting that the speaker keep dreaming against reality.
I began to really like this song when I realized that the feeling portrayed to me in it is very similar to what it felt like a few weeks after my first breakup.
Is it imo? Yes, because the despair is real but the unreal (and even unrealistic) hope is even stronger.
Thanks for reading. Maybe for these posts I can hold off on "Song in my head". What do you think? ^_^
There is a certain feeling I get whenever I listen to it or play it. I cannot think of a single word to describe it, but it's somewhere between loneliness and an almost insane hopefulness and yearning.
Most of the drama between these two emotions is illustrated in the contrast between the song's lyrics and the type of music accompanying it. It begins with a four-note motif that alternates between Esus2 and E, which appears to be setting up the song to be a love song--in effect, a love that is ongoing. This creates tension with the words first sung over it:
C#m A E
Sometimes I feel like I'm all alone
Wondering of what have I done wrong.
C#m A F#m B
Maybe I'm just missing you all along
F#m B
When will you be coming home
N.C. E
back to me?
(Chords are solely my interpretation.) Oh, so the love was lost. Well, this is weird, because we have already been cued in to thinking about ongoing, current love by the opening motif.
Also, the verse chords resolve to E major (as can be seen in the fragment above) but are mainly the minor chords (C#m and F#m being the main chords in this section). But when we get to the chorus, this happens:
E C#m F#m B
Can you feel me, see me falling away?
Did you hear me? I'm calling out your name.
F#m B
'Cause I'm barely hanging on
F#m B
Baby, you need to come home
N.C. [Intro]
back to me.
We get an explosive E major, coupled with the almost screamed words "Can you FEEL me? See me falling away!" The effect is jarring because we finally realize what kind of a song this is--she isn't coming back, but she still "need[s] to come home / Back to me." Then the intro comes back in, washing it all away with that hopeful strain of E's and Esus2's.
So the story that unfolds for me is this: The speaker here is at the brink of despair of ever seeing his loved one again, having just realized that he does love her after all. But kind of figuring they'll never be together again, his yearning to see her again inexplicably increases. Maybe, as in fiction, the improbable should happen and they will end up together again. But as time passes, that hope not only becomes more distant, but also more fantastic, insisting that the speaker keep dreaming against reality.
I began to really like this song when I realized that the feeling portrayed to me in it is very similar to what it felt like a few weeks after my first breakup.
Is it imo? Yes, because the despair is real but the unreal (and even unrealistic) hope is even stronger.
Thanks for reading. Maybe for these posts I can hold off on "Song in my head". What do you think? ^_^
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Changing up
Today I walked in the morning instead of at night as I have been accustomed to doing. It was a refreshing change of pace. I don't have to worry about coming home at an ungodly hour, but now that worry is replaced by the worry of arriving at my next destination (be it work or school) on time. I think it's a fair trade-off.
So now what's keeping me busy is writing songs, besting the other me at Sketchup, and work. I hope that next semester I can get back into the school groove.
Song in my head: Gerry and the Pacemakers, "I'll Be There".
So now what's keeping me busy is writing songs, besting the other me at Sketchup, and work. I hope that next semester I can get back into the school groove.
Song in my head: Gerry and the Pacemakers, "I'll Be There".
Monday, May 11, 2009
Selflessness
Today, as I sat down in front of my computer, I had the brilliant idea that I should record a song or two that I've written recently so that I don't forget the lyrics or arrangement so easily. But just as I completed testing my recording equipment (really just my 9-year-old computer running today's Linux and a microphone attachment) I get two requests for help. One was to help build a teapot on a 3d modeling program. The other one was to help edit a piece of fiction. Weighing my options, I asked myself, "Should I work on my stuff first, or should I help the ones who asked for help?"
Needless to say, it is now almost four in the morning, my voice has left me without me ever singing a single word, and I have finished building a kettle and is now starting on editing the story.
I think that right there is cause for a pause. I just can't say no to people. It's a streak that I have lived with since I can remember. Why help yourself when you can be helping someone else? I keep telling myself that I should be more careful in choosing who to help so that I can make sure that I have time for things that are important to me (like homework, my hobbies, etc.). But somehow, when I turn to the things I do for myself, I keep thinking, "Perhaps I can do this later, I'm still going to be around, right?"
Right?
Maybe. Anyway, it was fun to make the teapot, and even though I am a bit sleepy I will attempt to make inroads with the chapter. Perhaps it's the tutor/teacher in me that wants to keep helping.
Thanks for reading. And Happy Mothers' Day to all the mothers.
Song in my head: Jim Jones, Ron Browz, feat. Juelz Santana, "Pop Champagne".
Needless to say, it is now almost four in the morning, my voice has left me without me ever singing a single word, and I have finished building a kettle and is now starting on editing the story.
I think that right there is cause for a pause. I just can't say no to people. It's a streak that I have lived with since I can remember. Why help yourself when you can be helping someone else? I keep telling myself that I should be more careful in choosing who to help so that I can make sure that I have time for things that are important to me (like homework, my hobbies, etc.). But somehow, when I turn to the things I do for myself, I keep thinking, "Perhaps I can do this later, I'm still going to be around, right?"
Right?
Maybe. Anyway, it was fun to make the teapot, and even though I am a bit sleepy I will attempt to make inroads with the chapter. Perhaps it's the tutor/teacher in me that wants to keep helping.
Thanks for reading. And Happy Mothers' Day to all the mothers.
Song in my head: Jim Jones, Ron Browz, feat. Juelz Santana, "Pop Champagne".
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Sucker
Every so often the question comes up and is asked of me: How come you didn't leave Guam for college? The answer is a bit more complex than "Because it would've been cheaper here than anywhere else I would've liked to study."
When I talked to people back in high school and the conversation turned to what the plans for college were. Almost invariably they were to move away somewhere else to study. When I asked why, the replies were varied, but they were along the lines of:
But I turned my attention to Reason #2: there are too many problems on Guam. I was fortunate enough to have already have some rudimentary understanding of how the world worked by the time our family moved here, and I realized that the problems were indeed numerous. The schools are crowded and the children are being left behind, the local government seems more inclined to keep paying their employees than actually fixing the problems, crime is not addressed correctly, and almost every attempted "solution" to any of these problems has been a band-aid fix instead of a systemic realignment of priorities that would have been much better.
In my opinion, however, the last thing to do would be to leave. Each person who leaves is one less problem-solver or complainer that would be left here. In fact, the very reasons we would like to leave are the very reasons we shouldn't. I felt that I could have a hand in the solution of some of these problems we are facing, and that's why I ended up staying.
So here we are, almost 8 years later, and it's true that I have slacked off quite considerably from my once lofty goal. But the goal still stands. Once I graduate I will become the math teacher my high school teachers and college professors all blame for the lack of mathematics aptitude in Guam school children. And in some unseen small part, I will make a difference.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "Far Away".
When I talked to people back in high school and the conversation turned to what the plans for college were. Almost invariably they were to move away somewhere else to study. When I asked why, the replies were varied, but they were along the lines of:
- UOG might not stay accredited.
- There are too many problems here.
- I'm sick of being on this rock.
- I wanted to experience life without my parents for a while.
But I turned my attention to Reason #2: there are too many problems on Guam. I was fortunate enough to have already have some rudimentary understanding of how the world worked by the time our family moved here, and I realized that the problems were indeed numerous. The schools are crowded and the children are being left behind, the local government seems more inclined to keep paying their employees than actually fixing the problems, crime is not addressed correctly, and almost every attempted "solution" to any of these problems has been a band-aid fix instead of a systemic realignment of priorities that would have been much better.
In my opinion, however, the last thing to do would be to leave. Each person who leaves is one less problem-solver or complainer that would be left here. In fact, the very reasons we would like to leave are the very reasons we shouldn't. I felt that I could have a hand in the solution of some of these problems we are facing, and that's why I ended up staying.
So here we are, almost 8 years later, and it's true that I have slacked off quite considerably from my once lofty goal. But the goal still stands. Once I graduate I will become the math teacher my high school teachers and college professors all blame for the lack of mathematics aptitude in Guam school children. And in some unseen small part, I will make a difference.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "Far Away".
A note concerning friendship
As I sat here, I realized that one of the most valuable things in the world is a person's confidence or trust in another. Why? Because it's so hard to build yet so easy to lose. I guess this is the lesson that the past few weeks has been trying to teach me.
Song in my head: Kanye West, "Paranoid".
Song in my head: Kanye West, "Paranoid".
Thursday, May 7, 2009
T-shirt wisdom
It occurred to me that there is a certain kind of philosophical wit or wisdom that is not serious enough to be expounded upon in a monograph but is too mind-expanding not to express. Let us call this kind of wit "T-shirt wisdom". I got the idea from an episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, where he meets a duck and goose processor who was especially quotable.
I guess I'll start.
If you want to scratch your nose, you've got to find it first.
Song in my head: Seether, "Careless Whisper".
P.S. If you haven't already guessed, "nose" in the above t-shirt wisdom did not originally read "nose". ^_^
I guess I'll start.
If you want to scratch your nose, you've got to find it first.
Song in my head: Seether, "Careless Whisper".
P.S. If you haven't already guessed, "nose" in the above t-shirt wisdom did not originally read "nose". ^_^
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Accretion
I'm betting that when I clean my room tomorrow, I'll discover that at least 10% of the things in it aren't even mine. ^_^ If you own something that I have, don't worry; it'll be coming back to you soon.
Song in my head: Rihanna, "Disturbia".
Song in my head: Rihanna, "Disturbia".
Monday, May 4, 2009
They don't write music like this anymore
Lately I have been doing a lot of cruising on YouTube in order to listen to songs that I may want to cover with the Imaginary Friends. Almost invariably, when I get to a video that features music from more than twenty years ago (mostly 70s classic rock or 80s R&B or something similar), and I read the comments, I read the same line over and over again:
"They don't write music like this anymore."
Now, I've seen this line hundreds of times, both online and in the real world, and I may have even said this a couple of times in different occasions, but tonight, as I read it being said about Champaign, "Try Again", I felt a small but insistent irritation in the back of my head.
For some reason, the fact that I had the most excellent jam session with my bandmates just this past Saturday night where we played and sang the music of our decades (the nineties and this side of the millennium) kind of gave me a different skew on the above line when I read it tonight. When that particular poster said in the text comments, "...they don't write music like this anymore," (correct grammar and punctuation mine), he or she is implying that the music that was conceived of after that time frame intrinsically has less literary or otherwise musical merit.
Now, I know that's not true, because had it been true, we would not have sung any of those songs we sang on our hang-out. Why would we enjoy singing a musically inferior song?
Second, upon more reflection, I realized that the statement is patently true. Of course they don't write music like this anymore. There are now many more artists than there ever were when "Try Again" came out, thanks to the Web, mostly. Now, that makes the probability of hearing a "bad" song much larger than it was decades ago, but it also increases the probability of you hearing a song (or artist) that is much closer to your tastes. That's because older bands and artists couldn't burrow into a niche; they had to appeal to more people in order to succeed as musical acts.
Anyway, in the end, the annoyance passed, because I pictured a time thirty years from now, and we check out YouTube (or a future descendant program thereof) of, say, Usher, "Love in This Club", and I pictured myself leaving a comment, "They don't write music like this anymore." ^_^
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: John Mayer, "Sucker".
"They don't write music like this anymore."
Now, I've seen this line hundreds of times, both online and in the real world, and I may have even said this a couple of times in different occasions, but tonight, as I read it being said about Champaign, "Try Again", I felt a small but insistent irritation in the back of my head.
For some reason, the fact that I had the most excellent jam session with my bandmates just this past Saturday night where we played and sang the music of our decades (the nineties and this side of the millennium) kind of gave me a different skew on the above line when I read it tonight. When that particular poster said in the text comments, "...they don't write music like this anymore," (correct grammar and punctuation mine), he or she is implying that the music that was conceived of after that time frame intrinsically has less literary or otherwise musical merit.
Now, I know that's not true, because had it been true, we would not have sung any of those songs we sang on our hang-out. Why would we enjoy singing a musically inferior song?
Second, upon more reflection, I realized that the statement is patently true. Of course they don't write music like this anymore. There are now many more artists than there ever were when "Try Again" came out, thanks to the Web, mostly. Now, that makes the probability of hearing a "bad" song much larger than it was decades ago, but it also increases the probability of you hearing a song (or artist) that is much closer to your tastes. That's because older bands and artists couldn't burrow into a niche; they had to appeal to more people in order to succeed as musical acts.
Anyway, in the end, the annoyance passed, because I pictured a time thirty years from now, and we check out YouTube (or a future descendant program thereof) of, say, Usher, "Love in This Club", and I pictured myself leaving a comment, "They don't write music like this anymore." ^_^
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: John Mayer, "Sucker".
Sunday, May 3, 2009
A wet guitar
I had the thought that perhaps my grasp on conventional reality is actually a bit less tight than I suspected at first. It always happens that whenever I think that I finally have every aspect of my life figured out and under control, there are always a few areas where I drop the ball, so to speak. The feeling is like checking out nine books from the library and discovering, as you cross the front door to the outside, that you only have space in your hands for seven.
Perhaps it really is a blessing that we do not live forever, no matter how much our bodies yearn to survive for as long as possible. It is the enlightened creature's torment; there is no such thing as turning back to a simpler time, when all you needed were seven books.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Click Five, "Just the Girl".
Perhaps it really is a blessing that we do not live forever, no matter how much our bodies yearn to survive for as long as possible. It is the enlightened creature's torment; there is no such thing as turning back to a simpler time, when all you needed were seven books.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Click Five, "Just the Girl".
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Late or early
I have got to stop staying up late. My three extra awake hours ended up being spent on chasing rainbows about some new thing I can do with my Linux machine that would allow it to share files with... yadda yadda yadda, I can't even remember why I was "improving" my system in this manner. Maybe I have a natural affinity for following directions... ^_^ Anyway, in the end I was not able to get the result I was looking for, and all I have to show for it are red, swollen eyes.
Maybe resting them a while would do the trick.
Song in my head: Kidz Bop, "Stickwitu".
Maybe resting them a while would do the trick.
Song in my head: Kidz Bop, "Stickwitu".
Friday, May 1, 2009
Inauspicious
Actually, I don't know for sure whether the title for this post is an actual word, and it seems too trifling to actually open a new browser tab to look up a definition, but that's the best way to describe the end of April.
Now that the song is written, it's like a huge load off my back, and now I end up a little richer than before. It got me thinking that maybe I held on to the feeling so long precisely because I felt that there was a song in there somewhere. ^_^ Then again, I don't think that's true, because I am still a bit imo over the whole thing. Then again, maybe that's because I needed to feel imo every so often to be reminded of how that really feels.
Finally, the Imaginary Friends (I'm shooting for all four) will come together and watch Spinal Tap this weekend. That kind of fell together without much fanfare, either, but so much the better.
I think the best thing for me to do is to write "2010" in bold letters and paste it somewhere in my room, as a reminder of what I should have been focusing on all this time. I already changed all my profile pages to say that I graduate on Spring of 2010, and maybe, just maybe, the finality of that statement will allow me to sharpen my focus and hit the books harder than I have this year.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Foo Fighters, "My Hero". The Nickelback spell is over. ^_^
Now that the song is written, it's like a huge load off my back, and now I end up a little richer than before. It got me thinking that maybe I held on to the feeling so long precisely because I felt that there was a song in there somewhere. ^_^ Then again, I don't think that's true, because I am still a bit imo over the whole thing. Then again, maybe that's because I needed to feel imo every so often to be reminded of how that really feels.
Finally, the Imaginary Friends (I'm shooting for all four) will come together and watch Spinal Tap this weekend. That kind of fell together without much fanfare, either, but so much the better.
I think the best thing for me to do is to write "2010" in bold letters and paste it somewhere in my room, as a reminder of what I should have been focusing on all this time. I already changed all my profile pages to say that I graduate on Spring of 2010, and maybe, just maybe, the finality of that statement will allow me to sharpen my focus and hit the books harder than I have this year.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Foo Fighters, "My Hero". The Nickelback spell is over. ^_^
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Heard it in a song
Tonight I finished writing a song that was in my head all week. When I realized that this was the case, I turned my car radio back on. You see, during the time that I am composing or writing a song I try not to listen to the radio or any kind of music so that I can hear the music in my head a bit more clearly.
Anyway, that got me thinking about all the things I did and the decisions I made based on what certain songs said. When I started to get really close to someone we'll call Prairie Dawn for now, that was when that song by Jason Mraz, "I'm Yours", was gaining traction in the radio. (This was the version that had a more stripped down, percussion-less arrangement and not the one in We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things.) One of the lines in that song went
Has anyone else had the experience where some lines of a song inspired a decision or some subsequent behavior? Now it may turn out that I'm the only one susceptible to this, and that this is a non-question and should be dropped. I'd be fine with that. But if it happened more often, why does it happen at all?
As I reflected on it, it dawned on me that song lyrics gain power through the order in their composition. (See my previous post for more about order.) Maybe we're more likely to believe song lyrics because song lyrics are usually orderly in some way, and since the universe is also orderly, maybe an orderly song lyric closely describes the workings of the universe. And what, pray tell, makes song lyrics orderly? Well, rhyme, rhythm, the notes you sing those words on, any number or combination of those things.
Could it be that I broke my leg ice skating with a girl and brought to mind a new musical genre simply because of the words to a good Jason Mraz song? That'd be life imitating art, wouldn't it?
And who said that was wrong, anyway?
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "If Everyone Cared".
P.S. Here's another instance of life imitating art. I was driving Sexualspam around one night, when he suddenly called my attention to a scene playing out in front of a house whose corner we were rounding. In the moonlight, he saw some young punk and a girl, and the punk jumped over the gate, unlocked it, and let the girl in.
He jubilantly growled, "I just saw 'Hands Down' with my own two eyes!":
Anyway, that got me thinking about all the things I did and the decisions I made based on what certain songs said. When I started to get really close to someone we'll call Prairie Dawn for now, that was when that song by Jason Mraz, "I'm Yours", was gaining traction in the radio. (This was the version that had a more stripped down, percussion-less arrangement and not the one in We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things.) One of the lines in that song went
I won't hesitate, no more, no moreI credit these lines for inspiring (if not dictating) my course of action towards P.D., which of course led me to going to the Philippines with her and two of our other friends and the subsequent birth of imo.
It cannot wait, I'm sure
There's no need to complicate, our time is short
This is our fate, I'm yours.
Has anyone else had the experience where some lines of a song inspired a decision or some subsequent behavior? Now it may turn out that I'm the only one susceptible to this, and that this is a non-question and should be dropped. I'd be fine with that. But if it happened more often, why does it happen at all?
As I reflected on it, it dawned on me that song lyrics gain power through the order in their composition. (See my previous post for more about order.) Maybe we're more likely to believe song lyrics because song lyrics are usually orderly in some way, and since the universe is also orderly, maybe an orderly song lyric closely describes the workings of the universe. And what, pray tell, makes song lyrics orderly? Well, rhyme, rhythm, the notes you sing those words on, any number or combination of those things.
Could it be that I broke my leg ice skating with a girl and brought to mind a new musical genre simply because of the words to a good Jason Mraz song? That'd be life imitating art, wouldn't it?
And who said that was wrong, anyway?
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "If Everyone Cared".
P.S. Here's another instance of life imitating art. I was driving Sexualspam around one night, when he suddenly called my attention to a scene playing out in front of a house whose corner we were rounding. In the moonlight, he saw some young punk and a girl, and the punk jumped over the gate, unlocked it, and let the girl in.
He jubilantly growled, "I just saw 'Hands Down' with my own two eyes!":
The streets were wet, and the gate was locked
So i jumped in and let you in
And you stood at your door with your hands on my waist
And you kissed me like you meant it
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Thread theory
As I was mending my pants tonight after a night jog, I had an insight. People almost always talk about science and religion as being in some sort of conflict. Where there is science being conducted, people are likely to assume that religion will have no place, and vice versa.
Actually, for me, the real fundamental concept at work here is the concept of order. Human beings expect that the universe operates at some level of order. I would go a bit further and say that the human search for order is one of the things that define what being human is all about. We as a species would like to think that there is a reason things are the way they are.
In light of this, I see both science and religion as tackling this concept of order and broadening our horizons on it. But to me they are not in conflict; they are complementary, because science seeks to ask and answer how the universe is ordered, while religion and spirituality seeks to ask and answer why the universe is ordered that way. Both disciplines take as true the assertion that the universe is ordered in a certain way, and then explore the nature of that order.
Think about it: if we didn't think that the universe obeys some sort of order, and that instead it is randomness and chaos that governs its actions, then what good are science and religion for? What good are books, which seek to tell us what happened before or knowledge gained by others, if we know that such history or knowledge will never ever be useful again? The answer, of course, is nothing--if we did not think there was an order in the universe, we would be indistinguishable from the animals.
So hopefully you find some semblance of order as you leave this page and do whatever you are doing today. Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "Someday".
Actually, for me, the real fundamental concept at work here is the concept of order. Human beings expect that the universe operates at some level of order. I would go a bit further and say that the human search for order is one of the things that define what being human is all about. We as a species would like to think that there is a reason things are the way they are.
In light of this, I see both science and religion as tackling this concept of order and broadening our horizons on it. But to me they are not in conflict; they are complementary, because science seeks to ask and answer how the universe is ordered, while religion and spirituality seeks to ask and answer why the universe is ordered that way. Both disciplines take as true the assertion that the universe is ordered in a certain way, and then explore the nature of that order.
Think about it: if we didn't think that the universe obeys some sort of order, and that instead it is randomness and chaos that governs its actions, then what good are science and religion for? What good are books, which seek to tell us what happened before or knowledge gained by others, if we know that such history or knowledge will never ever be useful again? The answer, of course, is nothing--if we did not think there was an order in the universe, we would be indistinguishable from the animals.
So hopefully you find some semblance of order as you leave this page and do whatever you are doing today. Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "Someday".
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Twenty questions
The strangest insights can sometimes come from the most ordinary situations. Earlier this week, as I was spending some time with the Imaginary Friends, someone mentioned that he was trying to defeat an online "20 Questions" program by saying no to the questions and then giving a wrong answer when asked for the thing. I responded that maybe since the program was online, there would be an "averaging" system in place that ensures that if the majority of players were sincere with the game, the wrong answers would eventually be smoothed over.
That's when it hit me: Twenty yes-or-no questions amounts to 20 bits of data; by asking twenty yes-or-no questions, you can differentiate among 2^20 or 1,048,576 different things! (Actually, when I got the insight, I erroneously thought that there were less than 2^20 particles in the Universe. Exponents were not my thing... ^_^)
The key proposition, I think, in the twenty questions game is that the million or so things you can think of should all inhabit some sort of domain. In my friend's case, the domain was anime characters. I'm sure there are a lot of anime characters on all anime and mangas, but are there a million?
What I took away from this thought process was that quite contrary to my intuition, something as paltry as just twenty questions can hold so much information about an object. That is the mystifying effect people get when the program correctly guesses the object or character they are thinking of.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "Photograph".
That's when it hit me: Twenty yes-or-no questions amounts to 20 bits of data; by asking twenty yes-or-no questions, you can differentiate among 2^20 or 1,048,576 different things! (Actually, when I got the insight, I erroneously thought that there were less than 2^20 particles in the Universe. Exponents were not my thing... ^_^)
The key proposition, I think, in the twenty questions game is that the million or so things you can think of should all inhabit some sort of domain. In my friend's case, the domain was anime characters. I'm sure there are a lot of anime characters on all anime and mangas, but are there a million?
What I took away from this thought process was that quite contrary to my intuition, something as paltry as just twenty questions can hold so much information about an object. That is the mystifying effect people get when the program correctly guesses the object or character they are thinking of.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "Photograph".
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Are we there yet?
I really really wanted to go walking tonight, but I didn't because I forgot my shoes. So before retiring for the night (or morning, as it were), I placed my sport shoes in my car.
Overall, I think I've grown a lot as a walker/jogger. I seem to have found a good cadence and a good method, and I've stumbled upon a darn good circuit, one that is not too short, always interesting, and is well-lighted. Hopefully I will find the time tomorrow to do it.
I do have other things to do, you know.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "If Today Was Your Last Day". Hey, if you heard it upwards of 9 times, it'd be in your head, too. ^_^
Overall, I think I've grown a lot as a walker/jogger. I seem to have found a good cadence and a good method, and I've stumbled upon a darn good circuit, one that is not too short, always interesting, and is well-lighted. Hopefully I will find the time tomorrow to do it.
I do have other things to do, you know.
Song in my head: Nickelback, "If Today Was Your Last Day". Hey, if you heard it upwards of 9 times, it'd be in your head, too. ^_^
Monday, April 20, 2009
Typing with both hands
I haven't walked in a week, and these days I've begun to feel restless during the night. Perhaps it would be a good thing to start again.
Hearing from an old friend is very much like coming back home from another country. You pick up where you left off and then move on.
The thing I dislike the most about blogging is, surprisingly, not typing with both hands. It's the realization that you've forgotten all those things you wanted to say on it by the time you've turned on the computer. This is the situation I find myself in at this moment. It is not a trivial thing to set up and maintain a blog.
I've started to write a short story in Tagalog, and after having written a few paragraphs I looked at what I wrote. And the strangest thing happened: it sounded foreign. I don't know whether I should be saddened by that, but I know that I am not happier for it.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Beck, "Moon on the Water".
Hearing from an old friend is very much like coming back home from another country. You pick up where you left off and then move on.
The thing I dislike the most about blogging is, surprisingly, not typing with both hands. It's the realization that you've forgotten all those things you wanted to say on it by the time you've turned on the computer. This is the situation I find myself in at this moment. It is not a trivial thing to set up and maintain a blog.
I've started to write a short story in Tagalog, and after having written a few paragraphs I looked at what I wrote. And the strangest thing happened: it sounded foreign. I don't know whether I should be saddened by that, but I know that I am not happier for it.
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Beck, "Moon on the Water".
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Random thoughts I got while walk-jogging last night
I realized last night that Emily Dickinson is one of my heroes. She is one of those people who desired to create something new, and did so by using the things that were available to them. She took the cadence of church hymns (reportedly the stuff she loved to sing) and just the right words and made them express her unique worldview. The result is very much like a small but curiously strong mint; they look dainty and nonthreatening, that is until you put them in your mouth.
Do I also hope to achieve something like this? I don't know. Perhaps it is all about taking island music and making it express my emo side. But as it has become apparent that imo is much more than emo dressed up in island music. It's as if the "island" is influencing the "emo" part, changing it into a substantially different worldview. To complicate things, I now don't believe as strongly as before that we created imo. Maybe we just discovered it.
But I don't know for sure. Having thrown away my empty water bottle into a nearby trashcan, I decide to pick up my feet once again and start jogging.
Song in my head: Francis Magalona, "Kaleidoscope World".
Do I also hope to achieve something like this? I don't know. Perhaps it is all about taking island music and making it express my emo side. But as it has become apparent that imo is much more than emo dressed up in island music. It's as if the "island" is influencing the "emo" part, changing it into a substantially different worldview. To complicate things, I now don't believe as strongly as before that we created imo. Maybe we just discovered it.
But I don't know for sure. Having thrown away my empty water bottle into a nearby trashcan, I decide to pick up my feet once again and start jogging.
Song in my head: Francis Magalona, "Kaleidoscope World".
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Pink castles
I can't believe that it's been three years since the Imaginary Friends last performed on a stage. That number has to be upped somehow. At any rate, things are looking good and I am hoping that this time around will be an improvement. The stuff sounded good in practice.
For those who'd like to get an earful or two of imo, head on over to the grounds at the University of Guam for Charter Day (March 10) between 13:30 and 14:30. You'll see the Imaginary Friends there.
Off to sleep again.
Song in my head: Jennifer Lopez, "Do It Well".
For those who'd like to get an earful or two of imo, head on over to the grounds at the University of Guam for Charter Day (March 10) between 13:30 and 14:30. You'll see the Imaginary Friends there.
Off to sleep again.
Song in my head: Jennifer Lopez, "Do It Well".
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Nostalgia
Nostalgia can only be felt in the future.
Put another way, notice that people very rarely say "Oh, I wish I could be eighteen." Actually they say "Oh, I wish I could be eighteen again." It is only when we leave behind what seems to be the most hardship-filled times of our lives do we really start to figure out how much better we have become because of them, and the many times we were actually contented.
If you put this another way, you could say that youth is wasted on the young. But I don't think that's true, either. Would it be fair to say that there are no youths out there who actually cherish the opportunity that they have? Alas, wisdom does come too late, because usually it is only later that we realize just how much we miss.
So what is the point in all of this? The point is, it is never too late to make your future self be nostalgic for this present time in your life. Give your future self something to miss and do something amazing!
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Survivor, "The Search is Over".
Put another way, notice that people very rarely say "Oh, I wish I could be eighteen." Actually they say "Oh, I wish I could be eighteen again." It is only when we leave behind what seems to be the most hardship-filled times of our lives do we really start to figure out how much better we have become because of them, and the many times we were actually contented.
If you put this another way, you could say that youth is wasted on the young. But I don't think that's true, either. Would it be fair to say that there are no youths out there who actually cherish the opportunity that they have? Alas, wisdom does come too late, because usually it is only later that we realize just how much we miss.
So what is the point in all of this? The point is, it is never too late to make your future self be nostalgic for this present time in your life. Give your future self something to miss and do something amazing!
Thanks for reading.
Song in my head: Survivor, "The Search is Over".
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Running man
It was weird to see the Sun sink so low so quickly during a recent walk-jog I had. One minute, I was raising my head to see it, but then I looked down on my mobile phone. When I looked back up the ocean had almost swallowed it whole.
So technically, half my walk-jog was in the evening. ^_^
Song in my head: Simon Collins, "Unconditional". Now doesn't this guy sound like someone familiar? Why would that be...? ^_^
So technically, half my walk-jog was in the evening. ^_^
Song in my head: Simon Collins, "Unconditional". Now doesn't this guy sound like someone familiar? Why would that be...? ^_^
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