Whoo. Hmm. Well. I finished reading the Death Note series.To be honest, it was really kind of dry reading after L died. L's successors were just either too uninvolved or had this dominating asshole aura. Also, the appearance of the new Shinigami felt a bit unneeded.

In fact, it actually started to get boring after the whole cat-and-mouse thing stopped.


So then, anyway, (surprise surprise) I've actually begun to do revision for the exams. It feels so strange to actually need to study now, after having basically been on holiday for the past year. But this time there are real, important modules that I'm taking, and within each of them contain essential knowledge for my advancement as a person.

There's organic chemistry, which no student should do without. There's biochemistry, which I definitely can't do without. Unfortunately, biochemistry is a denser subject than everything I've come across so far. That includes... Everything.

If I'm not wrong, the H2 biology syllabus covers some of the reactions we study in biochemistry. Mostly related to respiration. My module covers a bunch of other stuff, including photosynthesis, gluconeogenesis, amino acid synthesis, nucleic acid metabolism... cycles and other things. There are at least nine of them. And each of them contains as many reactions as nine chemistry lessons.

Well, maybe not, but it certainly feels like a lot. The troubling thing is that there are no little logic shortcuts that I can use. It's not like chemistry where I can view some reactions as analogous to others. Biochemistry is just plain memorisation. Enzymes, catalysts, super-long names. Not only that, but there are so many ways to name a biological molecule. Which gets pretty confusing, since different textbooks like to use different names.

Take for example glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate. Abbreviated as G3P. Then there's also 3-phosphogylceraldehyde. You would have to abbreviate it 3GP. Which, while is essentially the same as G3P, looks completely different to me.

On the bright side, I am beginning to see logical links in the naming systems... Discounting the various ways to name one molecule. Phosphatases are for removing phosphate groups. Kinases transfer phosphate groups from high energy molecules to lower energy molecules. Where there's a dehydrogenase, there'll be NADH/FADH2 molecules.

So, I'll be done with this in due course.

-Joe

Jesus Christ.

You know, I'm all for letting the world know about science and how awesome it is, but sometimes those science journalist people really take things a little far. I get it, science magazines, like all other magazines, exist to be sold. But they represent a front, a face of Science itself. Sort of like how the Mouth of Sauron speaks for Big Eyeball Dude, except less evil.

I'm complaining in particular about a recent article, which was printed in the New Scientist publication. The article itself is informative and interesting, but the front cover of the magazine is gut-wrenchingly deceptive. It shows a kind of leafy tree- representing Darwin's idea of how all organisms were linked in a kind of "tree of life". On top of this tree, there are three huge words saying "Darwin was wrong".

Any discerning individual would probably read the article to figure out what exactly Darwin was wrong about. It turns out that it is simply that instead of pure, clean evolutionary trees as people used to think about, there is in fact an un-unravel-able web of genetic changes at the unicellular level. This is mainly due to many prokaryotes' ability to undergo horizontal gene transfers.

So that's what Darwin was wrong about. Because, you know, the concept of genes, let alone gene transfer between bacteria, was practically non-existent during his time.


But that's not what majority of the world is going to think. The laymen will look at the cover and think, oh, so I didn't actually evolve. The creationists would then tell the laymen, "Yeah, that's right. Science disproved itself." And suddenly we have a lot more people joining the Intelligent Design movement.

I guess it's a good thing that not everyone is that concerned about the debate. Most people wouldn't care whether they were told that they evolved from rats, or that a magical being made them from dirt.



-Joe

Those Google ads can be really funny sometimes. Even when I don't mention anything risqué.

Anyway, I've finally gotten bored of World of Warcraft. There's really not much more to do now, other than go on raid after raid in an attempt to snatch a piece of better gear. Unfortunately, that process is not only time consuming, but it also destroys your faith in humanity. This is mainly because you get to see just how selfish and moronic a lot of people are, even when they're supposed to be on your side of the war.

The internet doesn't make people dumb. It makes their stupidity more accessible to you.

I wonder what will happen when earth finally makes contact with aliens. We'll assume that the aliens had a huge head-start in terms of evolution and technology, and that they are the ones who would be visiting us. Thus, they would be an ancient and knowledgeable race, possibly fine-tuned and engineered to the point that self-destructive behaviours would have been completely weeded out from their psyche.

When would this happen? It really depends. It could be tomorrow. It could be in millions of years time. If we were visited by hyper-intelligent and benign aliens tomorrow, how would the people of Earth respond? This is assuming that we are capable of response, and that some form of relatively easy communication system has been developed between us and the extra-terrestrials. Most science fiction portrays each planet as a united force. No matter the geographical aspects of a planet, the dominant sentient species always seems to follow one ruler. There is no great social divide between one section of Coruscant and another. There is a social hierarchy, but judgment based on where a person comes from is non-existent.

The explanation given is usually that with the exponentially-increasing rate of advancement of communications and transportation technology, these advanced civilisations have learned to put aside differences based on geography, and to unite under one flag. This could possibly have been the result of pressure placed upon the entire species, such as someone threatening to blow them up.

Futurama is set in the year 3000, and earth is now The United States of Earth. Obviously, the Americans are the higher-ups. Richard Nixon's preserved head is president. But the point is, that other countries still exist. The other races still exist. Chinese, Jamaican people for example. No where in the show is there any form of racism.


Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that all of the well-known science fiction is like this. Sure, it's an ideal world, but can it really happen? The current situation suggests not. People have always had something to fight over. Land. Items. Shoving ideas down other peoples' throats. As Zapp Brannigan said, "Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things."

So yeah.

If aliens show up tomorrow, we're probably screwed. Some asshole country will most likely try to convince the aliens to destroy their enemies. Then they would rise to power.

Or, the aliens would decide that humanity is a bunch of sniveling rats and turn Earth into a barbecue pit.



Heh heh.
-Joe

So then, I've just been surfing Snopes.com, and I noticed a few things. One of them was that people made up a lot of bull. Another is that people are also really gullible.

There are a lot of listed urban legends, and hardly any of them have any evidence whatsoever to support their veracity. What there's a lot more of, is the number of completely stupid beliefs that have existed(and still exist, in some cases). Things like "swimmers are killed when stumbling upon nest of snakes at bottom of lake". Now, this is just dumb. Firstly, snakes do not make nests. Even if snakes did make nests, they wouldn't do it at the bottom of a lake. Snakes need to breathe, after all.

Also, this brings another thing to mind. Can a snake even move twigs and debris to form a nest? Its body is clearly not adapted to building things. I mean, have a look at those limbs. Cough.

Then, there are other things, such as "potted plants suck the air out of terminal patients' rooms". This just reflects on our education system. If this were true, a lot of us would be dead by now after being in buildings that contain indoor gardens.

And then there's an entire list of myths surrounding menstruation. For some reason, the people of olden times believed that women were these embodiments of evil. Menstruating females were not allowed to pretty much do anything, for fear that they would somehow spoil wines, cause dental fillings to fall out, prevent milk from curdling into cheese, and various other things that sound like witchcraft. It's almost as if they got the inspiration from Aura of Corruption kind of magic spells in RPGs.

I suppose, it is our imagination that fuels these absurd stories. Without that same trait, books and games would be so much less interesting. Still, I feel that everyone ought to exercise their own judgment when coming across new information. It is difficult not to feel hypocritical when saying this, for I was probably guilty of believing without seeing many times in the past.


In any case, did you know that while Thomas Edison actually had this idea of using a DC power system, instead of the AC system that we use today? Edison, with all his genius with the lightbulb, not only thought that it would've been practical, but also fought fiercely to have his plans realised. Now, it probably didn't occur to him back then, but his system would have required power generators every two hundred metres or so, for domestic houses to receive enough electricity. So we should really be grateful that Edison wasn't the only electricity guy back then.



-Joe

And so! Under my fingers there is a true masterpiece of input-device technology: The scissor-switch keyboard. It does the same thing as all the other keyboards, but unlike the keyboards that most of you use for your desktop computers, this one feels just like the one on your notebook computer!

I now have... Four keyboards in total.

Writing reports and other random stuff will be a lot more better now, since I get to use my nice 4x3 monitor instead of a widescreen. It's like having spliced the keyboard off my laptop PC to use here. Also, I told my parents that it was a gift. So if they ever ask you guys, play along. Heh.


I have sort of been... not writing, because I was waiting for this keyboard. I got a haircut(finally). I have a new pair of oculi- that means, spectacles. They currently feel strange though, as they feel much sturdier than my old pair. Also, I'm taking a while to adjust to the new degree. The optometrist guy said that it might take a few days. I sure hope that that happens before I have to do any heavy reading.

I went back to AJ during their open house last Friday. My own school was having an open house, but it was noisy. So, I went across the road to visit my friends. It was a strange feeling, knowing that I was pretty much considered an outsider there.


Anyway, video footage of a venomous mammal has been taken somewhere in Haiti. Haiti is this place in Caribbean where everyone speaks French. Anyway, the interesting thing about this whole thing is that modern mammals are not known to have venom. Some mammals do produce toxins that function to some degree as poisons, but this rodent has fully-functional dental venom delivery system, just like a snake. The only other mammal that has a venom delivery system is the platypus. But we're not counting the platypus because it's such a freak.

In any case, this rodent, called Hispaniolan solenodon, is believed to be something of a living fossil. One of the hypotheses put forth by the people who are studying this thing, is that venom might have been a common trait to primitive mammals, and modern mammals have since evolved to become poison-less. What this means for Hispaniolan is that it is most likely the evolutionary descendant of a completely different branch of mammals.

Although currently classified as endangered, it was a relief to ecologists to discover this creature as it was previously feared to be extinct due to extensive logging, and the introduction of new predators into the area. We're not really sure what we're going to do with this animal, but the first step is to find out more about it.

Then, we'll decide whether or not to take venomous forest rat off the menu.

-Joe

So. Hm. I’m tired. More tired than usual. I haven’t been sleeping that well lately. I have dreams of strange and unpleasant scenarios. Other times, I just can’t get to sleep, and I end up reading a book.

I’ve recently begun reading a manga, Death Note. Online. The translated version, of course. I was pretty bored. It is not bad, pretty interesting. The only problem is that now I have one extra thing to procrastinate with. Heheh.

Anyway, Sze Chuan highlighted to me that a 17-year-old ought to have at least 8.25 hours of sleep every day, to remain healthy. I do not know of the veracity of this information, but let’s assume for argument’s sake that it is true.

If a person my age really needs eight and a quarter hours of sleep daily, then we are all most likely sleep-deprived. People have to wake up any time between 5am and 6.30am in order to reach their schools in time. For the sake of ease, we’ll use 6am as the standard. 8.25 hours before 6am is 9.45pm of the previous day. Now, who sleeps at 9.45pm? Many of us consider “any time before midnight” to be turning in early.

Clearly, our work schedules and lifestyle choices do not permit us to have the sufficient sleep that we need. It’s not that we can’t perform on less sleep than we should be having. Our daily activities are testament to that. We work late into the night, and wake long before the sun rises, and yet we are able to learn, to lead, to think.


I came up with a shell of a theory about what might happen in the long run. There are two ways humanity can go, in regard to sleep. One, is that we slow our pace of life and take more time to enjoy sufficient hours of our daily comatose. Productivity might decrease somewhat. Technological innovation may appear less frequently. This shouldn’t be a problem, unless sometime in the distant future we’re going to be attacked by aliens.

The other way it would go is that we don’t change our lifestyle. Our health will be slowly eroded over the long term, and thus, we end up producing lower-quality offspring. The upside to this is that the few people who are genetically coded to require less sleep than others will be favoured. Not by much, but they will hold an ever so slight advantage over the rest of the population. Requiring less sleep means that they can hold up their daily activities while suffering negligible health effects. This leaves more time and energy for reproduction. Over many, many years, natural selection will enable these people and their offspring to populate the world. Humanity will require less and less sleep as time goes by.

Of course, by that time, we’d all be dead.

So, here’s a thought. Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were some kind of drug, or neural modification, that allowed you to achieve the benefits of eight hours of sleep in a much shorter time? You could pop a pill, go to sleep for three hours, and then wake up feeling as if you’d had a good night’s sleep. Of course, the other things that sleep does would need to be included in the effects of this drug. I’m just saying “what if”.

Anyway, I’d take this thing, if it worked.



-Joe

That probably was not the most awe-inspiring post I've written. And hardly fitting for the new year, too. So instead, today I bring a list of the best of last year.

Good things:

The KI Circle
Never had I dreamed that one day I would stumble upon a group such as this. It, of course, began when I decided that I was good enough to handle the intellectual demands of Knowledge & Inquiry. I suppose I just wanted to know if I could be considered a cut above the rest. So I took the test, went for the interview. It was probably one of the better decisions I had made the entire year. If I had not chosen to step up, I'd have taken GP and dealt with boring news articles and mundane topics, never meeting this group of wonderful people that I now miss very much.

Also, if it were not for KI, I might never have discovered the concept of eugenics. At least, not for some time. And donuts. I probably would not have come to enjoy donuts as much if it were not for that one night.

Come to that, I'd never have attended a choir concert if it weren't for the KI circle. In short, I'd have missed out on a lot.

My O'Level Results
My results were basically a permission slip to go just about anywhere I wanted. Like a Wild Card in a game of Uno. Like an infinite improbability drive. I could have done anything. Well, except maybe a few things, but I ignored those options, and I am still choosing to ignore them now. Chinese, my bane.

Games With my Friends
Could there be anything more enjoyable? We played card games, we went bowling. In June, we played Halo 2 throughout the night at a chalet. We set stuff on fire. We scraped the potassium nitrate oxidiser off sparklers and made a nice little bomb.

On the Origin of Species, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle of Life
Yes, when I got my hands on this book, I was happy. Everyone taking biology should read this one. It's simple enough, doesn't contain too much jargon. The layman could read it with some effort. It can be a bit dry, seeing as that there are no explosions or end of the world plots. It's a scientific journal, so you can expect it to be slow reading.

Another book, Guns, Germs and Steel. I hadn't even heard of this one until Hongjie told me about it.

Diablo III Announced
A day of cheer and joy for all fans of the series, including I. I've long stated that the best dungeon-crawler has always been Diablo II. Few other games of the genre can compare to its addictiveness. So I'm waiting for the next installment of the series...

Oh, another cool thing is that I probably watched my first live streaming of anything on the internet. I watched a good section of the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris. Live. That was pretty cool all in itself.

Comic Book Movies
Iron Man, The Dark Knight. To some extent, The Incredible Hulk. It is rare that a new work of fiction is really good, so for now, I am content with these live-action remakes of old pieces of fiction.

Spore
All hail Will Wright! With Spore, we can now smite our enemies before they evolve! And we can bring our own little creatures to colonise the universe. You can be The Ellimist, or you can be Crayak. Or you can be a little of both, saving one planet with one hand, while using the other to crush someone else.

Sure, I got kinda bored of Spore after a while. I suppose the main reason for that was that at the highest stage of the game, you control a spacecraft with many functions. As opposed to being an actual galactic god.

Has the LHC destroyed the world?
lol


And more.

-Joe

Um, happy new year!

It's 2009. Sheesh. That means that I need to get used to writing new dates. Even now, after more than an entire year since I've been in Montfort, I still get the urge to write a (15) after my name. In fact, if you want to take a look at my recent work, you'll find little blotches next to my name indicating that I accidentally wrote my old index number.

I feel like I could have had a better 2008. I know now that I can't do anything about it, and that all I can do is hope I do something right this year. The new year's message is always the same. Resolve to be fitter, smarter, and more productive. Become a better wheel, a solid cog turning in the machine that is society. Remove your old rust and re-oil your joints. A new year is a chance for a new start.

Also, it means we're all one year closer to the decay of our fleshy bodies.

So, I urge anyone who is doing engineering to start looking into biomechanical technology.



I feel like I just haven't left my past behind. I still yearn to somehow go back and relive those moments. I don't suppose I'm unique in that aspect; after all, what are memories good for if they are not cherished? What are we, but a collection of thoughts and experiences, melded through the amazing biochemistry of the brain into a conscious, thinking individual? Without our memories, we would function on instinct alone. We would be savages, not thinking ahead, not learning from the past. About as intellectual as the common cockroach, and far less sturdy.

As of late I feel as if I have diminished somehow. The confidence that I had in the past is waning. I used to be confident bordering on arrogance. Now I feel that my complacency was misplaced. Could I really have messed up so badly? Have I really grown so slack and mentally incapable that my work did not appear satisfactory in the eyes of the examiners? Perhaps I have lost my advantage.

Perhaps not. I still refuse to believe that my mental prowess is lesser to that of such a large number of people. If I am truly the one who has been declining, then why am I constantly sought after for answers? Surely, I know what I am doing. I'm the one who finds the answers. I'm the one who sees the right questions. I am Yoda. I am Gandalf. People call me the Genius. The Wise One.

And what now?

I see no light.

-Joe