Before you read the rest of this post, just a disclaimer that the two items in the title have no relation whatsoever. I just like to chunk random things together and random links can be made, like coding a cat or a cat coding.
Nm, so back to what I want to post. Yup, so two things. Let's talk about cats first, since majority of the internet likes the latter.
Remember the post on me being a weirdo to a cat? After that incident I did not see the cat anymore, and I miss it very much. Every Saturday after my piano lesson I will go the usual place it rests, which is between a bush and a palm tree. But to my disappointment, it's not there. For some time I thought it is dead, because once I saw a mouse scampering nearby. If the cat is alive and thriving he/she will not tolerate scampering of such screature.
Yesterday I was on my way to piano lesson as usual. On my way I noticed a white cat. When I returned it's still there, to my surprise. No this is not the cat that I mentioned above, that one is black. This one is all white, has greyish blue eyes, and the dirt near it's mouth makes it look like it's forever smiling. The cat is emoing on the edge of a 1 metre high platform. I approach it slowly, but it does not seem as frightened as the black cat mentioned above. Then I went really close and lowered myself to its level, my eye focused on it's face. It appeared very uncomfortable, turning it's face away but it's eyeball is turned in my direction. Yeah I'm being weird again.
Upon close examination I realise cats have distinct facial features. This one has a relatively long face, long nose and less gigantic eyes compared with others. It reminds me of someone but I can't remember. Maybe cats have personality like humans too. Every cat is different.
After a few minutes I got up and went away. As I turned it started to lick itself, just being a cat.
I wonder how it's like from the cat's perspective. An unknown human approaches it and did nothing but stare at it for 5 minutes.
And I continued my journey home. That's where the black cat come in. Yes, the one that has been missing for ages. It's at the usual place. Imagine my amazement to have seen two cats on such short intervals and able to see my favourite cat again.
But this time, it's a bit different. The cat has a blue collar. And it's just sitting here, refusing to move when I approach it. Maybe it's less afraid of humans now, given that it finally found itself an owner. On one hand, I'm happy that it has found itself a home. On another hand, I'm slightly sad, for the alert cat is gone. I like the old cat, it had character. I even doubted whether it's the same cat. But what is the chance that a cat similar in appearance appears at the same specific place in the same time of the week?
On a side note, CATS the musical is coming to sg in Jan. Really want to go watch. #randominsertion
Now, coding.
Finally started learning coding at codeacademy. The website offered courses on 6 coding languages, including: html&css, javascript, jQuery, PHP, Python and Ruby. It also teach you useful stuff like web developer skills and learning popular APIs. Learnt a bit of javascript and web developer skills. However, I googled what's the best language to learn for a beginner and it appeared that C/C++ is best to learn about how the machine functions on the fundamental level, while having a steep learning curve and python is the most beginner friendly. Java is voted for its usefulness. Then I learnt that javascript is not java. Hmm, maybe I shall learn python first, then finish javascript and go to C to understand what I'm writing. Yes I'm ambitious muhahaha.
Always thought programming and coding is cool. It's like creating magic with lines of words and symbols. There are endless possibilities.
And the reason I decided to start? Stumbled this cool game called lightbot. Teaching the concepts of programming through a very fun game. Each level is a puzzle. Thought it's really fun, and one thing lead to another. Strongly recommend. Light bot 2 is fun too.
The links:
http://armorgames.com/play/2205/light-bot
http://armorgames.com/play/6061/light-bot-20
K bye.
Sunday, 7 December 2014
Sunday, 16 November 2014
Chemistry olympiad journey
Chem O in two days time...
So at the beginning of year, I was like this:
Then every time after selection tests, I'm like this:
And now, I'm like this:
Ok, on a more serious note, regardless of what I will get in the end, I have really learnt a lot in this journey. Honestly, mugging so hard for olympiad is kind of stupid, but it gives me the activation energy to study at least. While I'm dying from all the mugging, I changed my perspective a bit and realise that I may be just scratching the surface of the iceberg. Just like how I thought I know quite a bit at the start of JC. It is nothing compared with what I know now, and what I know currently will be probably like nothing compared with what I will know a few years later, or maybe even a few months later, seeing how much I progressed this year.
Although bagging home some medals will be nice...
Why didn't I put in more effort in the year? Reflecting back, I realised that my life may be too hedonistic, indulging in meaningless phone games and reading of unimportant feeds on phone. Sometimes I will just slouch on my bed and scroll through my phone for hours. It's really bad, I should change. No, I will change.
I shall not treat this competition so seriously, in case I panic like the past few days. Treating things lightly will always make things turn out for the better.
To myself, good luck, have fun.
So at the beginning of year, I was like this:
Then every time after selection tests, I'm like this:
And now, I'm like this:
Ok, on a more serious note, regardless of what I will get in the end, I have really learnt a lot in this journey. Honestly, mugging so hard for olympiad is kind of stupid, but it gives me the activation energy to study at least. While I'm dying from all the mugging, I changed my perspective a bit and realise that I may be just scratching the surface of the iceberg. Just like how I thought I know quite a bit at the start of JC. It is nothing compared with what I know now, and what I know currently will be probably like nothing compared with what I will know a few years later, or maybe even a few months later, seeing how much I progressed this year.
Although bagging home some medals will be nice...
Why didn't I put in more effort in the year? Reflecting back, I realised that my life may be too hedonistic, indulging in meaningless phone games and reading of unimportant feeds on phone. Sometimes I will just slouch on my bed and scroll through my phone for hours. It's really bad, I should change. No, I will change.
I shall not treat this competition so seriously, in case I panic like the past few days. Treating things lightly will always make things turn out for the better.
To myself, good luck, have fun.
Sunday, 2 November 2014
Alter Ego
It's a rare occasion that I'm making a game commentary, but the game is so good. Recently I stumbled across a couple of interesting games, and they are all very thought provoking. Let's start with the simple one first: the infinite ocean.
The game is a point and click puzzle game, just like any escape games, where you collect stuff etc.
However, the essence of the game lies in the various logs stored in the computer and disks. Ok, from now on, spoiler alert. If you want to experience the game before reading on, click here: http://armorgames.com/play/7327/the-infinite-ocean
There is a story behind. Apparently you in this game is part of a group of research scientists, who are working on a project to create a sentient being out of computers. And you succeeded. Then you move on to have intellectual and philosophical discussions with the it/he/she/whatever, about beauty, human behaviours etc. The computer is unable to understand irrational human behaviours which you also find it hard to explain. But the computer is able to feel. It has a more powerful imagination than any human in the planet and is thus able to "see" the future, consequences of all your actions.
Halfway through your project the government starts to intervene. Because the computer also has powerful computing power, it want the computer to lay out the best defense for the nation possible as it's about to engage in some sort of war. Either that or the team has to abandon the project. Reluctantly the team gives in to the government. However, as the computer is developed, it starts to realise what it's built for. Seeing how the war will have devastating consequences, it begins to resist. Eventually, it want to control all the military computer based things to stop the war.
Of course the government will not allow that, so it put on a ban on the computer's thoughts. The being created sort of "slept" leaving the rest to handle the task by the government.
You somehow wake up in your research lab losing your memory, and you have to refigure everything out. You in this game has no character and really no choices to make. Eventually you can reach the last bot and deactivate this limitation set on the computer, in which it can then take over and stop the war. If you do a speed run you will probably take 5 minutes. However, if you read through every log the scientist, the being and the government made, it will probably take hours.
The game brings up many interesting questions, such as the possibility of a non-biological sentient being, the nature of existence and thoughts, and also how stupid human actions are such as war.
Ok, moving on, the next game is even more interesting and sophisticated. It's literally a game of life. But it's text based, and every choice you make will shape you as a person. A whole bunch of possibilities to be explored, and you will not even get to experience every question in the first round of your gameplay.
This is how the interface looks like:
You will click on each icon which will present you with a question. It looks something like this:
You begin with the infant stage, then moves on to child, adolescent, young adulthood, adulthood, middle adulthood, old age and eventually death. Of course just like real life, certain wrong choices may lead to wrong choices and cause premature death, but the chance of that is pretty low.
As you move on with life, the situations become increasingly complex. You will have to juggle work, family, relationship and others. You have many stats that most of your choices will affect.
Examples of difficult situations:
And you will realise that certain stats of yours will pose limitations. For example, I still have no idea how to successfully get the job of researcher.
And towards the end it gets really sad. You progressed through the game really fast without realising and then you found out that you haven't done a lot of things that you wanted (Eg. getting married, have kids, have a decent job, earn money). There is a limited number of clicks per stage. Before you know it, you have died.
Still a thought provoking game nonetheless, makes you realise that life is so short and yet can be so rich in the build up of all those little things. The game stimulates real life quite well. The only part I dislike is that so many steps are needed to find a partner, get married and have kids that it will take up many turns of the game, making you unable to do other things. Only if they assign less turns at infancy stage and more towards the later part of life.
Anyway, link here if you would like to play: http://www.playalterego.com/alterego
So that's about it. Life doesn't have much changes now, just PW, inadequate mugging for chem O and slacking away on mobile games. Apart from that, some music that I enjoyed listening to recently:
Good night.
The game is a point and click puzzle game, just like any escape games, where you collect stuff etc.
However, the essence of the game lies in the various logs stored in the computer and disks. Ok, from now on, spoiler alert. If you want to experience the game before reading on, click here: http://armorgames.com/play/7327/the-infinite-ocean
There is a story behind. Apparently you in this game is part of a group of research scientists, who are working on a project to create a sentient being out of computers. And you succeeded. Then you move on to have intellectual and philosophical discussions with the it/he/she/whatever, about beauty, human behaviours etc. The computer is unable to understand irrational human behaviours which you also find it hard to explain. But the computer is able to feel. It has a more powerful imagination than any human in the planet and is thus able to "see" the future, consequences of all your actions.
Halfway through your project the government starts to intervene. Because the computer also has powerful computing power, it want the computer to lay out the best defense for the nation possible as it's about to engage in some sort of war. Either that or the team has to abandon the project. Reluctantly the team gives in to the government. However, as the computer is developed, it starts to realise what it's built for. Seeing how the war will have devastating consequences, it begins to resist. Eventually, it want to control all the military computer based things to stop the war.
Of course the government will not allow that, so it put on a ban on the computer's thoughts. The being created sort of "slept" leaving the rest to handle the task by the government.
You somehow wake up in your research lab losing your memory, and you have to refigure everything out. You in this game has no character and really no choices to make. Eventually you can reach the last bot and deactivate this limitation set on the computer, in which it can then take over and stop the war. If you do a speed run you will probably take 5 minutes. However, if you read through every log the scientist, the being and the government made, it will probably take hours.
The game brings up many interesting questions, such as the possibility of a non-biological sentient being, the nature of existence and thoughts, and also how stupid human actions are such as war.
Ok, moving on, the next game is even more interesting and sophisticated. It's literally a game of life. But it's text based, and every choice you make will shape you as a person. A whole bunch of possibilities to be explored, and you will not even get to experience every question in the first round of your gameplay.
This is how the interface looks like:
You will click on each icon which will present you with a question. It looks something like this:
You begin with the infant stage, then moves on to child, adolescent, young adulthood, adulthood, middle adulthood, old age and eventually death. Of course just like real life, certain wrong choices may lead to wrong choices and cause premature death, but the chance of that is pretty low.
As you move on with life, the situations become increasingly complex. You will have to juggle work, family, relationship and others. You have many stats that most of your choices will affect.
Examples of difficult situations:
And you will realise that certain stats of yours will pose limitations. For example, I still have no idea how to successfully get the job of researcher.
And towards the end it gets really sad. You progressed through the game really fast without realising and then you found out that you haven't done a lot of things that you wanted (Eg. getting married, have kids, have a decent job, earn money). There is a limited number of clicks per stage. Before you know it, you have died.
Still a thought provoking game nonetheless, makes you realise that life is so short and yet can be so rich in the build up of all those little things. The game stimulates real life quite well. The only part I dislike is that so many steps are needed to find a partner, get married and have kids that it will take up many turns of the game, making you unable to do other things. Only if they assign less turns at infancy stage and more towards the later part of life.
Anyway, link here if you would like to play: http://www.playalterego.com/alterego
So that's about it. Life doesn't have much changes now, just PW, inadequate mugging for chem O and slacking away on mobile games. Apart from that, some music that I enjoyed listening to recently:
Good night.
Tuesday, 14 October 2014
Some coincidence
So after finishing the previous post, I went out of my room to my charging phone and had some whatsapp conversation with my chem teacher. The conversation somehow went to H3 and he is sad that less people want to take H3 chem. I tell him that maybe people lose confidence after promos and think they can't qualify for H3. He replies that then these kind of people cannot take H3 because H3 requires a "child like dream". Funny how I just finished a post on that.
So I replied him, then a lot of people can't meet this criteria because very few people have a child like dream nowaday.
Lol I sound so pessimistic.
Actually deep down, I feel that everyone has that child like dream. But most are not awaken. The dream fall asleep as the people grew up. They will be forgotten in a corner, or kept in confinement within a nicely locked up box.
寻梦
在水中的倒影
在斑斓的星空
在玄幻的光影
在婉转的旋律
找不到
回忆被遗忘的过去
久违的快乐
一直锁在心里
梦
还在那
孤寂角落里
把心灵上的灰吹走
拾梦
Suddenly feeling poetic. I'm a poet now.
So I replied him, then a lot of people can't meet this criteria because very few people have a child like dream nowaday.
Lol I sound so pessimistic.
Actually deep down, I feel that everyone has that child like dream. But most are not awaken. The dream fall asleep as the people grew up. They will be forgotten in a corner, or kept in confinement within a nicely locked up box.
寻梦
在水中的倒影
在斑斓的星空
在玄幻的光影
在婉转的旋律
找不到
回忆被遗忘的过去
久违的快乐
一直锁在心里
梦
还在那
孤寂角落里
把心灵上的灰吹走
拾梦
Suddenly feeling poetic. I'm a poet now.
Monday, 13 October 2014
Imagination
With some recent introspection I realised that I am gradually losing my imagination.
It used to be so easy, put me in any environment and not long after a while I will start to fantasize about all sorts of things and form weird theories by myself. Those interesting imageries and thoughts used to be the essence of my life, without me realising it.
Now, they don't come and visit me anymore. When my mind goes blank, it really goes blank, not processing anything. No more interesting things going on inside.
Or, I'll just be dwelling on past memories and melodies. Which may be interesting but never more interesting than all those weird things I used to create.
And the sad things is, I can't even remember what I used to imagine anymore. I can only vaguely recall that it's an exciting inner world where no one knows. It's my own secret garden. It's my relief to my external world, and it's filled with beautiful things. Then an amusing thought (which usually consists of a possible string of events that will never occur flashing by in a split of a second) pops up and I cannot help but to let out a smile.
Now, I'm just becoming a dull and boring person. I am becoming an adult whom I once was so baffled about regarding their preoccupation with trivial and boring stuff.
Boring, boring, boring.
I'm becoming ordinary. I am losing my identity. I become a person who can tackle all troubles life and society throw me, but losing originality, losing the "灵气" that I was born with.
I will become a person that read newspaper and settle bills, a person doing mundane things everyday, and worse, things I don't like just to fend my living D:
I will waste my life away, wasting it on TVs, checking phone replies, social media, useless small talks, and other useless crap.
Then I'll lose my direction, I will constantly ask myself what's the meaning of life because I'm living a life that I find not meaningful, then continue wasting it away by bothering myself with that question.
Children do not have to bother about whether life is meaningful. They just indulge in every moment of it, and they do not question themselves if time is worth spent. They do not value time like money. Yet they are very happy, although in an adult's eye spending 3 hours playing with trains is a complete waste of time.
Can I just be selfish, I don't live to contribute to society, I live for myself.
I want to simplify everything, restoring my child at heart, restoring my imagination and pure joy that stems from nothing. The world is such a fun place if you view it from another perspective.
It used to be so easy, put me in any environment and not long after a while I will start to fantasize about all sorts of things and form weird theories by myself. Those interesting imageries and thoughts used to be the essence of my life, without me realising it.
Now, they don't come and visit me anymore. When my mind goes blank, it really goes blank, not processing anything. No more interesting things going on inside.
Or, I'll just be dwelling on past memories and melodies. Which may be interesting but never more interesting than all those weird things I used to create.
And the sad things is, I can't even remember what I used to imagine anymore. I can only vaguely recall that it's an exciting inner world where no one knows. It's my own secret garden. It's my relief to my external world, and it's filled with beautiful things. Then an amusing thought (which usually consists of a possible string of events that will never occur flashing by in a split of a second) pops up and I cannot help but to let out a smile.
Now, I'm just becoming a dull and boring person. I am becoming an adult whom I once was so baffled about regarding their preoccupation with trivial and boring stuff.
Boring, boring, boring.
I'm becoming ordinary. I am losing my identity. I become a person who can tackle all troubles life and society throw me, but losing originality, losing the "灵气" that I was born with.
I will become a person that read newspaper and settle bills, a person doing mundane things everyday, and worse, things I don't like just to fend my living D:
I will waste my life away, wasting it on TVs, checking phone replies, social media, useless small talks, and other useless crap.
Then I'll lose my direction, I will constantly ask myself what's the meaning of life because I'm living a life that I find not meaningful, then continue wasting it away by bothering myself with that question.
Children do not have to bother about whether life is meaningful. They just indulge in every moment of it, and they do not question themselves if time is worth spent. They do not value time like money. Yet they are very happy, although in an adult's eye spending 3 hours playing with trains is a complete waste of time.
Can I just be selfish, I don't live to contribute to society, I live for myself.
I want to simplify everything, restoring my child at heart, restoring my imagination and pure joy that stems from nothing. The world is such a fun place if you view it from another perspective.
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