Loneliness is not so unfamiliar as it is difficult;
Difficult because whenever I try to put a name or a face
To the restlessness of my heart,
I come to the frightening conclusion that there is nobody
That I actually miss;

And between busy days,
When I stop to slowly sip my morning coffee
I can't actually remember
Who my best friends were -
Only procedures, patterns, places,
As if I have become a case study for a thesis that is eating up my life.

And yet there is this great sense of being alone,
Like an old monument that has witnessed a city change,
Only to find itself the only familiar view on the landscape,
Its yellowed white hiding under another skin of paint.

Perhaps it is the blessing of a line of kindred spirits
Who had been with me for a little while, and then gone,
(We shall not debate who has outgrown who,)
But now my heart
Will not be satisfied
With anything less than a soul
Similarly burdened,
That it can no longer remember
The faces of even those
Who have bothered to come by
And put moisture to my cracking lips
In a desert of lonely souls.

Here i sit, longing, wanting,
Afraid that the same emptiness that drives me
To want to be wanted by beautiful strangers,
Is the only companion I must learn to live with
Until my heart gives up its beat.

it's amazing how little the country could have changed, given how much it has been engineered in the past 60 years. the trains are still operated by a captian who stops the train, opens the doors and closes them with a control box, rings a bell, and then starts the train. then he announces the train's journey on the PA system. it's all very nostalgic, and very puzzling, yet intriguing, how this country decides which jobs go to people, and which go to machines.

what the mind does to resolve the two "stereo" images that fall on the retina to triangleate them into a 3D visual experience is beyond me. but putting on a new pair of glasses just makes what the mind does even more, mind boggling.

the mind probably has a mega-database of experiences that it aligns information from the senses and attempts reconstruct for us a copy of reality, much like animators make a 3D-model of the world inside the computer. but what impresses me so is the brain's tolerance for error and change. changing specs is like introducing a systematic error to your senses - and amazingly the brain takes care of that. somehow it has a mechanism to "normalise" the newly skewed data and still make sense of it. it's like it doesn't "hardcode" anything. and it's amazingly fast.

amazing that we have brains built-in, ain't it?

e:if meaning in life comes from books, then which came first, meaning or books?
e:^nvm
h:meaning! because there would be no books if there was no meaning to writing them. or at least something along that line
e:ya
e:so reading about the meaning of life is second-hand-knowledge.
e:someone already put into his/her mouth, chewed, and then put it into a bowl.

supper!

play

work

thread the dotted line

Factory Girl

I have been reading about contemporary art, and my brain seems to have been pondering so much over what I have been reading that I even dreamt about art, but it is also my reading that pointed me to this movie Factory Girl.

I had wanted to spend an evening at the museum, but finding nothing worth my time, I turned over to the movies and this seemed to be the only thing I would watch. Just before I entered the cinema, I was somewhat worried that this might have been a hollywood-styled rip-off that wants to talk about the glamorous girl and all, and make it float on Andy Warhol's fame, but was somewhat comforted that it was a pretty small screen, with an even smaller audience.

My worry did not end there - the film started with the grainy desaturated film that many art-house-wannabe films overuse, but it soon became apparent why it was done that way - the film talked a fair bit about Andy's films. And from the beginning on the screen was Edie's beautiful face, charming the audience into the movie.

I found the film very experiential. It showed what glamour was, what popularity was, what fame was, and how flimsy the whole thing was, yet it made me believe that it was worth it all - and I think that is pretty analogous to pop culture.

Andy invited Edie to star in his film, and just before the shooting scene, Andy said on the screen that he didn't usually tell his actors what to do - something puzzling until the next screen rolled in. Five men were supposed to approach a horse sexually, and the horse was angered. Edie just walked into the film, kissed the horse and calmed it. Not telling his actors what to do was pretty much choosing the correct group of people and allowing them to be themselves and respond to one another's dynamisms - putting that on film would allow the audience to experience, as close to firsthand as possible, that same excitement of good dynamics. This says two things - that the superstar is one who, on film, lives on your behalf; and that Andy was really using the lives of people as his canvas. At about that point in the movie, Andy declared that he would stop painting and make movies instead. In this light, this all made much sense.

Reading about Andy and his voyeuristic inclinations makes me think back and realise that the movie did a pretty good job to portray even this - he was always behind the camera, just watching. He had shades on just about all the time, and this seemed to help accentuate the fact that he was there, watching. And whenever Edie felt uncomfortable about something the other participants wanted to do to her, she looked at Andy, making one feel Andy's role in relation to the film - he was always outside, but watching.

Towards the end of the film, there was this particular scene in Edie's room, when she was all broke and just doing all she could to get drugs - soft lens and warm lighting really made the point. She was just giving herself to drugs, her judgement was heavily affected by the drugs, and just allowing anyone to do anything they wanted. The soft lens gave a dreamy and helpless feel to the whole scene, allowing the audience to understand what she was feeling. I thought this was really good cinematography.

I think this film's greatest power lay in how it experientially explained the power of pop culture. There was one scene, just before Edie was "disposed of", where Edie was saying how she had to live in Andy's world - this was when you have sat half way into the film and grown to love the rhythm of pop culture - and this handsome cowboy (Edie's romance interest) came in to tell Edie in her face that all this that she was living for, was not real. I could not help but empathise with Edie, and believe too that this glamorous life was really THE life, but when Mr Cowboy musician came in and told her that she was being made used of by Andy Warhol, it felt so like life, when we are told something that we know is true, and that we will choose to live to regret not listening to that piece of advice.

Just before the final turn of the film, Edie's old friend and admirer appeared and showed her a photograph of her, just before she flew to New York into her high life - and what followed, to me, was really skillful judgement - Edie lept out of the car, and ran. Instead of having her cry and talk about how she regretted everything, she simply, ran. This makes the audience feel her desire for change. And it also allows the movie, to spend more time covering what it should - the life she had been through that led her here.

Perhaps it was my reading on contemporary art that set me in the right mood for this show, but I really think this is worth watching. All the people who need to look good are good looking, those who need the correct cup sizes have the correct cup sizes, and all you need to do is just to sit there, outside, but watching.

digital hypnotiser

Do you pay for your music?

this questions seems to make people get defensive and start to find ways to avoid having to explain why they do not pay for music. yes, i also believe that cds are sold too expensive, but single songs aren't. concluding that the money goes to the industry instead of the artist is like saying that the money for a building design project goes to the firm and not the architect. the very reason someone decides to work for a company, is proof that he needs the company, that there is something he is unable to provide or receive if he went independent.

parallel to this question, is its counterpart,

Do you pay for your software?

some people see this as the same question, but it is essentially different, just as one's decision to buy a refrigerator and to buy a PDA is totally different. not just because these are essentially different products, but the music industry and the software industry work differently.

software has GPL, which has worked thus far, but in a commercial society, people who believe that software should be free are able to make parallels of commercial software and be sure that they will meet real-world needs, but music unfortunately works differently. music, unlike software, is a designer product and not a commodity. no matter how much one believes in free music, making parallels of commercial music will end him up as a copycat. this is because people see the style in music, people believe that a certain music, belongs to a certain person. programming actually works the same - the quality and style of code, can actually be attributed to specific programmers, just as books to writers, but this is not something the common-man can understand.

coming back to music, let's put the question differently.

Do you think the artist would want you to pay for his CD?

yes, most of the money goes no the industry. but cd sales gives the artist power in the industry. it gives him bargaining power so he can get more money to pay for his next jaguar and his girlfriends' Louis Vuittons. just like the company gets most of the money you make for the company, but you still want the company to make as much as it is able to. and whether or not your company is paying you enough, is a different issue altogether.

IRC

watching lines of text
repeating and scrolling across the screen
it's like i'm watching a world
as small as my world now trapped in the room
pass me by
most of the time
it all feels like
the world is an LCD
with everything happening between two glass plates, not in my world;
i would like to think that my world has much more, and it must be somewhere else,
but outside the LCD,
is just me, sitting in front of the damned notebook,
my greatest comfort being my music tracks
programmed not to betray me.

もし生まれつきのすべては、ゲームのように生まれるまえに選択できる設定だったら、自分はいったいなんで今持っているすべての長所、弱点、頭よさ、顔、人種、両親、体の癖、体質、生まれた国などを、選択してセットにしたのか、思い出せますか？

If everything you have in life were like the settings u gave to your character before you started a game, would you still be able to remember why you had chosen your strengths, weaknesses, how intelligent you are, how you look, your race, your parents, your body and everything that you were born with?

僕は少し思い出せたと思う。だけど、設定時想像したのは、決して今の現実ではない。

Maybe I do somewhat remember. But what I must have had in mind back then, cannot be the reality that I am living in today.

世界はインターネットやテレビ放送など通信の発展により根本的に変わり、社会の価値の核心となる世界観もそれにつれて変化する。

The world has changed so much since... and its values has been radically altered by progress in communications technologies.

こんな世界に、今の設定だと、悔しいけど、もう設定済みだから、もうどうしようもない。
だけど、時々、考える。自分の顔のポイントをもっともっとアップしといたら、と。

It makes it painful to think about how i am left to live with settings that no longer match this reality. It makes me wish i could have gone back and edited my settings and gave myself more points for looks.

でもさ、人間は満足できないものだ。人を見たら、すぐそいつの何かがほしくなる。

but then again, humans are simply insatiable.

だけど、何でもあるほど完璧に見える頭がよくて、金持ちで、体質もよくて、格好いい人を見たら、知りたくなるではないか・・・そいつが選択した設定を。

still, when one sees someone incredibly perfect - having the brains, the body, the money, everything, one cannot help but wonder, what he had selected for his character before it all started.

周りの世界は意味がなくなっている
自分の生活も、大人ごっこに見えてくる
何かがほしい欲望なども
友人、仕事、夢も形だけ残っている

一人になった部屋で
今日幸せだった、とも言い切れず
でたらめに書いている詩（うた）をどうやって
終わらせるのかわからないように
今夜も夜更かししてしまいそう

明日も同じ生活が続くだろう
早起きしても期待はない
ただ見飽きた儀式のよう
洗練かつ無感情

Like stray cats
Wanting to be wanted,
Their eyes would look up at you, longingly, if it had not been
For their pride.
Lined down the streets you see them everyday in transit,
Their minds too, somewhere else.
If you gave fish to the cats
They would at least come by and nibble,
And rub their warm bodies against the trunk of your leg, but these
Would pass you by, shuffling along the invisible walls
That separate their worlds from yours.
Why should I be so surprised?
After all, this is the age wireless networks in the air
Can pull continents together, as much as its firewalls
Can put a sea between two rooms.
But I ask myself, what it is, about the city in this age,
That I love so much?
Or is it that, for the lack of imagination,
This has become, to me,
An easier loneliness to bear?

僕は正義の味方だ。でも勘違いするな、僕は決して君の味方ではありません。

いじめられたら助けてあげたいけど、それはいじめる方が悪かったからだけだ。

もし君がいじめる役を選んだら、僕は必ず君の敵になる。

悪く思うな。僕はただ冷静に考え、正しい方の力になるだけだ。

この世界の人間は正と不正に分けられているわけではない、それはわかってる。

仲間だって、正の一面があれば、不正な一面もある。

なんにしろ、正と不正の定義自体も、あいまいになりつつある。

でも僕は、僕こそが正義だ、とあえて考えたくはない。

とすると、誰が正と不正を定義するだろうか。

それはわからない。わかるのは、孤独感だけだ。

無条件で仲間を選ぶことができない僕には、仲間という意味がよくわからないからだ。

そう、僕自分もしょっちゅう不正な一面を見せてしまう。

その時の僕は、だれの味方でもありません。

そんな時は、ほうっといてほしい。

時間がたったら治るから。

もう一度正義の味方の顔つきになったらまた声をかけてください。

しかし、今の僕は、正義の味方の顔つきどころか、時間の味方の顔つきをしているだろう。

顔に刻んだ時間の流れ。

心に染まった永遠まで伸びるこの一瞬の色。

終わりがるような終わりがないような、

始まりがあるような、始まりがないような透明な客観的さ。

それは雨の点滴と同じ色をしている。

苦しみの涙と喜びの涙も、そして悲しみの涙も、
同じ色をするだろう。

average joe

yo yo horny joe
bend your waist n touch your toes
yo yo fucker jane
get ur strapon get in game

here we sing our happy song
morning loud and evening strong
hey hey i wanna play
here comes jimmy jack and james
no no i want my turn
on the butt'n let me paint
oh oh we're running high into my blue V paradise
say say who lost her way? let me come over don't be shy
put ya hand onto my steering
work it good into my gearing
here here we're getting started
hop on 'n ride; i love those thighs!

yes yes we're coming fast
onto the highway make it last!
forget the siren skip the toll,
relax and do as you are told
check ya belts we'll play it safe -
duncha wanna ride again?
come baby on ya face
i see that eager smile at me
i know u wannit say u wannit
here we go!

yo yo average joe
bend your knees and fold your legs
didya hear what i just said?
whats with that smirk what's in ya head?
oh.

i would imagine that once upon a time, when the family put their hands to the fields, that life would have been centred around the field - seeding time, rainy season, harvest, and festivals and social life would be built around all this. a time when social life was indistinguishable from work, and work was inseparable from religion, and religion was part of life, and everyone was part of everything.

i don't know if life would have been auto-pilot back then, but this i am sure - after so many years of urbanisation, many of us have not yet come to terms with work. we have pigeonholed everything and isolated the different parts of our lives, such that work and "life" are as separate as the Math period is from PE lesson in school. the bell rings, and we switch modes.

has it become so hard to integrate work into our lives, and be completely satisfied with it, feeling the same satisfaction a farmer gets when he sees his fields golden?

i don't know. but i think, maybe what i want most at this point of my life, is somehow to have a job that i can call my life.

test everything. trust only as much as you are willing to lose. hold dear the things that matter, but also be ready to lose everything, including yourself, because somewhere down the road, we all lose ourselves sometimes. when you can no longer see the things that used to define the person you are, reinvent. "redo from start" is an error message, but also good advice. it is sad, when people decide to kill themselves when they can no longer face the world without the things around them that used to remind them who they are. if there's a "true" you inside, then you cannot find yourself better than when you have lost everything that you can lose, and are left with that which you cannot. move on. life and time are a couple, and time does not look back. if something wasted your life, spending any more time on it would further be a waste of your life. let go. let go of the past, then you will be able to take hold of the future as it becomes the present. life is always in the present moment. lose it and lose everything. but remember, don't panic. DON'T PANIC. panic is your worst enemy that is always seeking to eat up every present moment you were born to enjoy. enjoying life is not a right. nobody will give it to you, and you can't fight for it. don't complain to the waiter that you didn't enjoy your soup. you just have to learn to do it. and to do it well, in any situation. and when you have mastered that, life would seem easy. some might see you as a loser, some a winner, but why bother, when you have enjoyed every bit of it?

色即空：空即色。

the abstraction gives birth to the instance, and the instance is exactly like the abstraction. you cannot see the instance, but you can know it is alive. you can see the form of the abstraction, but it is not alive. so which has more form, the instance or the abstraction?

just like the runtime is the program, the source code is the program, the binary is the program, but the source code is not the binary, and the binary is not the runtime.

that's why computing to me is both philosophy and engineering.