Gold is up over $500US an ounce

Thats the most interesting thing I've heard all day. I'm so sick of 'buddying' with new people at work. Its really draining. Hopefully that will all be over soon. They're meant to start on ... actually its tomorrow!

Lazy day

Today was one of the laziest days I've ever had at work. Not only was it a Friday, it was really nice outside. So after actually getting to work early for once, we helped to train a lot of new people who are coming in. Then... we somehow got an unusually longer lunch, and even an extra break during the day while they were fixing some stuff up with the system.

Almost at the end of the day, I got another call from another bank, about another summer degree related position. Twas nice. Things are looking up! Although I don't think I should become too hopeful. Ah well, theres always my current job as backup.

blah

I have to start off with the obligatory excuse for not blogging so much recently: I just haven't had the inspiration. I think it has something to do with being stuck at home or being at work the whole week. Nothing has actually happened.

Had my 2nd last exam today. It was okay.

I have a psychometric test tomorrow for an intern job at a relatively large organisation. In addition, I also have a psychology exam. The exam is about Industrial and Organisational Psychology. Part of that is the selection process and the methods they use to choose the right people. How oddly ironic and somewhat appropriate.

Exams

I forgot to say how I think I went.

Welll.. Meh.

God... again

Because I've got nothing better to say.

While I'm waiting for the next episodes of my favourite TV shows to finish completing their transition, I'm going to blog. And because I'm a relatively boring person, theres nothing to blog about in my life.

My sister and I were having this discussion the other day, after she read my previous blogs. Actually, she refers to it an as argument, but I don't think I was really trying to argue anything, I was trying to understand something. Everyone seems to comment on hers like I'm the bad guy. Well fine, I'm the one who's going to hell by their standards, so whatever.

What I was trying to understand was the issue of faith. I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out why some people do make that 'leap of faith' and choose to believe in some higher being. The way I understand it now is that nobody actually understands God well enough to answer all the questions that seem to crop up about his existence. So in the void created by the lack of understanding, people have filled it with faith.

I don't think anybody really knows this, but sometime in year 12, when I was having one of those 'meaning of life' crisis, I went round to the local Christian gathering. This was about the time of the 9/11 thingy, so there were some flyers going around saying something like "Why did God let this occur?". So, procrastinating instead of studying for my exams, and trying to solve my rather bad state of depression, I figured I'd go and listen to what they had to say.

After a bunch of loud shouting (which seemed to be directed at me, I think I was the only gentile silly enough to read the flyer and attend), their arugment in a nutshell to explain the suicide flights was that God works in mysterious ways. I thought, omg, this sounds familiar. But nonetheless, I stayed behind to ask questions. Nothing they could come up with could actually go any further than that. Shouting at me doesn't really help the situation. I was after reason, not noise.
"We don't profess to know God's will." was their general gist of evading questions they didn't know how to answer. Well, neither do I, but I know that if I were God, the 'much greater good' would overcome the free will of a few suicide bombers who didn't really believe that I existed anyway. The sacred free will vs sacred humans lives thing. Maybe its because free will outlasts human life. That makes sense at least.

So I think that congregation still has faith that God let that happen because its all part of his plan. The preacher that night thought that part of that plan of sacrificing 4000 lives was to bring me into the fold. I guess he read that one wrong. There was another bloke who wrote this small book about God. It attempted to explain things. I read it, and it didn't really say anything I didn't already know (or hear about at least e.g. God loves us all awwwww *hugz*). I think I've still got that book somewhere.

Anyway, lets not get into the whole FW vs GP debate again, we've been over that.

So the hole that faith seems to fill is a big one for me. For others, its a matter of simplicity: God obviously exists, because He makes a big impact on my life. He creates a world where I'm mostly happy, and I have things which make me so. I should be thankful for the things He has done. Theres two problems (at least).

1. One is in the explanation: They assume that God exists or that the scriptures tell the truth, and then use this to justify the events. Normally I'd like to infer things from other things which are quite likely to be true. E.g. Pens write, I have a pen, therefore I can use the pen to write. Whereas 'believers' tend to think, I can write, pens can write, therefore I must have a pen. You could have a bowling ball dipped in paint and roll it around a large piece of canvas, but I'm not sure if thats writing. Assuming the conclusion and then using the conclusion to explain things isn't a very good approach.


2. Another is in the way they form the causal link between God and all the things that happen. Oh crap, I just realised this goes into all that FW and determinism shit again. Nup, screw that. Wait... I've got something. People pray to God asking for things. (E.g. "Please help me to do well on my exams...", "Help me get some more friends who are nice", or a more altruistic one: "Help me to help others") Let's see where I can take this without touching on determinism.
   Theres a lot of conflicting views on how God is meant to be a part of your life. To some, he heals illnesses, solves worldly problems, and generally does nice things. To others, he's only a spiritual guider, supposedly leading people towards what they imagine he wants them to be. There are a lot of published instances where poeple have said that their belief in God has somehow allowed them to escape some life draining disease which the doctors said was terminal. Somehow, I don't see how they get to that conclusion. Don't rubbish me with that 'Oh it must be God, what else could it be?' thing. It could be anything. Maybe it was a misdiagnosis. Maybe the doctors don't actually understand the disease well enough to explain why it happened. We don't even understand how or why we develop different types of cells yet, so understanding the rest of the body could take a bit of doing. Jumping to a conclusion of a higher being, wayyyyyy beyond our level of understanding, imbuing one person with the ability to overcome a terminal disease, the silently retreating, isn't exactly rock solid. Maybe aliens landed during the night and transplanted their prostate while they weren't looking. I think thats got about as much of a chance as the God one.

Faith does not remove the need for reason and justification. It just bypasses it. When people talk about testing faith, I think they're referring to testing whether their rational thinking would overtake their somewhat hard to justify beliefs. I don't see why people resist. Unless reason is the devil, and heaven is the ultimate mindnumbing place where absolutely no rational thought takes place, I'd be inclined to go for reason.

Forgive me for being blunt, but I think faith is a layman's way of looking at the world. Its like saying... 'Oh I can't be stuffed figuring it out, I'll just go by what you said even though it doesn't really make sense'. Seeking to understand something, and having the ability to admit the lack of understanding in something is more wisdom than just having the faith to believe. I know I always say "Whatever you say" or just agree with most things, but a lot of the time its to reduce conflict. But for the things that really matter, I'll take a stand.

As for Fi's idea of listening, yeah, sometimes we're not always right.
"god's always listenin to mE i can vouch for that" (Fi, 2005)
"God exists because I say so" (The implcation?)

Awesome

I just woke up at around 12:45. Since then, I've been studying for my computer science subject - interactive system design. I think I've finished. Thats a record for me. I even managed to answer the questions to the past 5 years of exams. Well.. at least in my head and not on paper, but its not hard. They haven't changed much over the past few years, and they always ask this one question about affordances, constraints and natural mapping. Theres also always a question on key stroke level modelling. So thats about 20% of the exam which is pretty much set.

Too bad its a hurdle requirement to pass, otherwise I might have just answered those two. LoL.

Corporate Ethics

OK. I think thats enough talking about God for one week.

So tonight we're moving on to something a little bland. Thats right, you guessed it, corporate ethics. Now what do we mean by corporate ethics? Well, I don't actually know, so we're just gonna wing this one.

Theres a bunch of people going around arguing that corporations should be socially responsible. That is, they shouldn't take advantage of people, or the world in general. They should also give back to the community. For example, some guy at work managed to get a grant to give to his kid's kindergarden. All he had to do was apply, apparently. I thought it was kind of silly because only organisations nominated by employees could possibly get grants. In a way, its limiting the types and number of organisations which could obtain such benefits. What happens to the others?

What might be a better idea is to reduce the cost of their products to their customers, so that they can use the money they've saved to buy their own treehouse and donate it to the kindergarden. Better yet, they can spend it on booze.

Maybe it doesn't count because its a mega organisation which Australians seem to love to hate. I don't think I should say which one it is explicitly in case some suits rock up at my door threatening to disconnect my grandfather's cable tv. He lives on that thing.

Anyhoo. I'm here to argue that corporations shouldn't really need to do things like that. Companies (at least in Australia), are treated as separate legal entities from the people who own and work in them. One great thing about this is that if the company goes backrupt, the shareholders get away scot free. Unless of course you get caught. This is always fun when you pay youself heaps from your own company and then it goes kaput'. Then you get investigated and people in suits start raiding your pacific island and stealing your holiday boats :( .

Companies are created to simplify things, and make money. If you owned a company, it would probably be to make money. As a corporate entity, they have fixed levels of income tax (currently at 30%), which is a lot less than the current top income tax rate. They also let a bunch of people own it, which is different from a person. A person is still a legal entity but you can't own one. At least not in this country.

So why do people argue that corporations should be socially responsible? I don't know really. I guess its because people want to get over their own stupidity and want someone to blame when they did a big boo boo. Theres numerous examples of such things, heres two off the top of my head:

• I heard of this thing where this large bank was approving car loans to aboriginals at the top of Queenland. They were all living on centerlink benefits, so it ended up with people having something like $20 to live off every week after they made their loan repayments. I don't see this as socially irresponsible, I think its stupid. Not only are the people borrowing money a bit silly in biting off more than they can chew, the money lender is also kinda stupid. Which bank would lend people money if they know they can't pay it back? Thats right, the Commonwealth Bank. This is not to say that this is the only bank that does this. Banks lend money to dole bludgers all the time. Sittin on their arse and using their credit cards until they run out of limit, then go get another credit card. So I'm stereotyping, whatever...we'll get to that another day.


• Everyone knows about those people who have ridiculously high phone or internet bills. There was this whole saga how some poor sod who had a bill in the thousands of dollars. So what they did was go on telly, tell their sob story, and then somehow managed to get most of the bill written off. People should learn what they're getting themselves into. Sure, if you're new to the area, find out about it, consider some alternatives, then make your choice. Don't go blindly to the biggest thing you find and embrace it like Winni the Pooh Bear, however huggable it may be.
  

Ok I've had enough. Corporate Ethics is a load of crock. People aren't going to buy your products because you sponsor charity events or cancer curing organisations. Or maybe I'm just an evil capitalist >:D

In other news

1. Somebodys cat got shipped to France by accident.
2. Tomorrow is a public holiday (Melbourne Cup!) but I'm working, and will gets heaps of $$$$.
3. Exams are next week and I haven't started studying
4. Daylight savings has started and its scary

Next... Intelligent design

Keeping in line with this week's theme of writing heaps, its time to shoot down the idea of Intelligent design. I'm not going to take credit for this one. I actually read an article in a magazine which had most of the ideas I'm about to put down.

For those of you who don't know what we mean when we say Intelligent Design (ID), let me lay it down for you. Basically its the notion that this universe is too well designed, too well structured, for it to be made by chance. The idea is that it could only have happened if someone, or something, wanted it to happen out of concious thought (or whatever the alternative to thought may be).

So thats their argument basically. The world is too perfect to have been made by chance. I think its silly because nobody actually knows what the alternative is. Nothingness, including the non-existence of space, is hard to imagine. I mean, you could imagine it, but all I can come up with is blackness. The thing is though, even blackness is something. How can you possibly have nothing?

I'll be one of the first to admit that this universe does seem to be rather nice. I mean, the weight of a quark is supposedly good. Apparently if it were slightly different, the universe would have collapsed in on itself before it even begun. The thing is though, we would never be here to consider the possibility of intelligent design if it were different. Now I don't know whether the existence of this 'perfect universe' is actually enough to say that someone designed it. The existence of a universe would only show that one exists, not that something created it. Its like saying I have good eyes because I must have eaten some carrots. It could be true, but it is impossible determine the cause you only know the effect.

Then we run into the age old infinite question of, if it was made by something, then what made that something? To put it more explicitly, if a God made the universe, then who made God? And so on and so forth. It just goes nowhere, and then we're only delaying the inevitable. These questions are always fun to ask, however.

Lets say something did design the universe. I wonder how many they flopped through before they came up with this one. Universes that go backwards in time (Red Dwarf anyone?), or what about the one where they didn't get it right and it flopped before it even started? The possibilities are only limited by our imagination, or those of our creators. It kind of reminds me of thse time in chemistry when we were trying to separate some flammable liquid or something, and instead of it falling through the tube, it caught on fire. Oh the memories. But I digress...

This is not to say that ID is such a bad thing. They've got a theory, and trying to find evidence to support it. However, the only evidence they have is existence. The problem is drawing a substantial argument to link the two together apart from "just because".

Oh the mysteries of the universe... This one is almost as hard to figure out as why Soh is always late. I have a feeling that one will stay locked away for all eternity.

God's plan

There has always been this thing about fate. Many religions preach it, astrology certainly preaches it, The Matrix has some elements, and so does Mortal Kombat: The Movie (I am the one). What is it about fate that we find so attractive?

Keeping with my theme of bagging Christianity most of the time, I've decided to do just that. Justification of fate from a Christian point of view seems to revolve around the notion of God's plan. From my somewhat limited reading of Christian stories of rebirth and divine intervention (its so short, I'll list it: Run Baby Run, starring Nicky Cruz; The Hiding Place, starring some Jews, I think and most recently, The Cross and the Switchblade, starring a minister with a cameo appearance from Nicky Cruz), they all seem to mention God's plan. The novels appear to basically present the author's narration of what they percieve to be God's plan working in their own lives, and how that has brought more people to Him.

So lets assume God's plan for people does exist for the moment.

Free will is another theme which is on the other side of the fence as fate. Belief in free will allows people to percieve that they have more control over their lives, that what they do has some impact - the whole cause and effect thing. As a side note, positive affectivity, i.e. the belief that one's actions can and will have an effect on one's life, reduces the risk of stress *insert fatalist comment from devoted communist here*.

Yet Christianity also preaches free will. God gave us free will, thats why Adam and Eve ate the apple from the tree. I, however, eat apples less frequently. Enough said about Christians and free will.

So how does God's plan (GP) fit in with Free Will (FW)?

I don't think they contradict too much. Apparently if you freely devote yourself to God, thats what it is. However, the problem lies in interaction. Fi says that God has someone for her, where they'll be perfect (in terms of being a spouse). Now, lets skip over the statistical probabilities of finding that said person, and that he exists. What if he doesn't quite follow GP? What if he's using his FW to marry some other person?

Moreover, whats to say that GP even involves having the best of things? Bill Gates is apparently the anti-christ, and he's doing quite well for himself.

I'd say Fi's pretty screwed. Maybe its because I don't believe in 'the one'. I think more along the lines that people grow to love each other and all that stuff.

Oh well, apparently it still all works out. Whatever happens, they can always just fall back on 'God works in mysterious ways'. Seems to work for just about everything, as long as you have faith.

I think I've asked more questions than I've answered. But I think I'll sum it up in a take home message:

(GP + FW) ~= Pig Wif (Read into it)

Life sucks, just do whatever. Maybe it'll work out.

P.S. Don't actually read into it if you don't get it to start off with. Its very obscure.

P.P.S. I have finished my psych assignment

Just an update on me assignment yarrr

Ok, so I missed "International Speak like a Pirate day" by a few months. Better late than never I always say. Although if you're going to be late, at least let me know so I can keep sleeping.

Currently my literature review is on 1789 words, not including references. I'd say thats actually pretty good considering I slept at around 1am last night without doing any more work on it since the end of uni that day and I've had several hours of uni today. Whats even more impressive is that my list of references is currently sitting at almost 2 pages,. Thats approximately 600 words in references speak (according to MS word), or approximately 4 times as many references as I have for my average assignment.

Too bad I haven't actually read a single one of them from start to finish.

Its the end of semester! Well.. almost

Last week!

Bad thing about it is that we have exams, and I've actually got an assignment due on Thursday, and I worked this evening, I'm probably working Wednesday and I'm probably working Thursday too. Oh well, at least I've kind of started on the assignment. I've actually written about 700 words already, which is a good thing.

Time for an update

A few things have happened since the last posting:

1. IS Ball
Probably wasn't one of the best balls I've been to. Not enough alchohol basically. Also, the music wasn't that great. They kept skipping the good songs and had some really weird techno stuff mixed in between. You can see Garry's new thing for some pics. Alice also had some too, but I dunno whether its ok to put them up.

2. Actually I dunno what number 2 is
It felt like I did a few things this week, but apparently not. Played tennis again with Age on Tuesday morning, but thats about it really.

A week of nothing

We're extremely understaffed at work. A string of people leaving and being unable to work, including a few people who are about to leave makes it very hard on a small team. It doesn't help that I'm not there either.

Other than that, nothing much is new. I have to find a new place to have lunch. The usual places are starting to get really boring and stuff.

The weekend went by so fast

So fast in fact that when I woke up this morning, I thought it was Friday.

Funny thing is though, I remember being really really bored on the weekend. I didn't actually DO anything except come into uni on Saturday and do my group assignment. The only other thing I did outside of the house was eat dinner at the restaurant. I think I skipped lunch and breakfast. No wait, I had lunch at red rooster on Saturday. Ah, its all coming back to me now (not Celine Dion style however).

As for what I did today... well.. almost missed the bus, came into uni, went to class, visited Terence at his consultation hour, went to class again, went out for lunch with relatives, came back to uni to do group assignment and now I'm sitting here, still at uni, blogging.

I'm actually waiting for dinner. Supposedly we're going out to some place in the city. We're not actually sure where we're going yet, but I'm sure it'll be some half baked place.

The other day when I was watching Batman Begins again, I noticed what made me like it so much. It was the music. That Hans Zimmer dude is so good. He also did the music for Gladiator, The Rock and The Lion King, just to name a few. Then I realised those are movies which I really liked as well (The Lion King is one of my all time favourties). I think its those really tense and inspirational scores he seems to come up with all the time. Its really inspriring of course, and it fits the scenes they've made in the movies really well.

Just today's 2c.

Something to write about

Or to write about nothing. There is actually nothing to write about, because I'm so bored tonight. Maybe I'll go see a movie by myself or something.

Another one of those strange things

I've noticed that our small circle of blogs seems to be a little funny. When one of us stops writing for an extended period of time, others seem to pick up the slack. Or maybe its the other way around. Maybe when one of us sees the others writing, they feel they don't need to write and 'fill in the gaps'.

Take for example last week. I didn't write a single word. In that week, Adrian wrote heaps. Even Sam wrote something once (however small and miniscule it might have been). The VMs seem to have bouts of inspiration, if thats the correct term. Theres occasional spurts of posts. Even Kerry, who normally only writes one or two posts a week came up with quite a few recently. Eric and his smallish blog is steady but seldom updated.

Now Adrian hasn't written anything, I've written a bit, and its like the amount of writing has more or less stayed the same overall. I'd blab on about harmony or chi and ki, but I don't think thats really relevant.

It was just curious to see the patterns. It doesn't really bother me why it happens, as long as I have something to read. Damn selfish of me :)

Home Alone

Tonight is a little lonely. I'm sitting in my room by myself, with nobody else in the house. My grandparents have gone on holiday, and so has my aunt. My sister is out at some church thing, and my parents are at work, as usual.

It may seem weird to some, but I'm rarely at home just by myself. I've always been used to having other people in the house with me. No its not because I'm popular, though sometimes I wish I were, its just that theres always some member of the family who's usually here. Usually my grandparents or aunt are at home. I'm used to the fact that my parents aren't at home, I don't think theres been more than a total of a month worth of nights where they've been at home earlier than 10pm in my entire life that I can remember.

This is not to say that its not that bad a thing. The experience is quite weird right now, and theres no nagging grandma or bored grandpa to distract me from what I'm doing (which was watching Batman Begins, again). It may just take a little getting used to... the serenity. Which reminds me of a strange thing my workmate was saying to me.

So heres the situation: You're on a really long road trip, playing Eye Spy.

"I spy, with my little eye, something starting with 'S'."
"Street sign"
"Nope"
"Shit"
"Nope"
"Steering wheel"
"Nope"
*Fast forward half an hour*
"Okay we give up, just tell us!"
"Oh you guys! SERENITY!"

Now who can actually SEE serenity?

Anyway, too much digression, or had I already finished what I was going to say? Oh well, that'll do.

No I'm not dead

I've been meaning to write for a while, just unable to build up the motivation to do so. I've also had something to write about for a while. It seems like a good idea to me, but will ultimately turn out to be a flop. Notice the conviction there. Ah.. literary genius in the making.

Chinese Product Quality

Firstly we need to define quality. It is not in the sense it has been used in the past i.e. with acronyms such as HQ, AQ etc. I didn't actually even know what those meant, nor the ranking system behind it. I think its only the guys who know. But I think I'll just leave it at that. Quality is (partly from dictionary.com's definition) as:

Superiority of kind: an intellect of unquestioned quality
OR
Degree or grade of excellence: yard goods of low quality

To me they mean the same thing. So to me that'll be enough.

In modern times, China has been associtated with low levels of quality. I shall now attempt to explain this phenomenon.

One of the problems with the Chinese culture is its selfishness. While it is officially a communist country, in reality its more of a dictatorship. The politburo controls everything, and the Communist party a.k.a. "The Party" supresses anyone who opposes them. It is only in recent times, with the advent of the Internet, that many of the Chinese have been able to speak out against the government. The Party epitomises the selfishness of the country. Many, dare I say, all of the members are in it to gain something personally. I don't mean to say that everyone is like that, and China is not the only country who has this kind of problem. We're all selfish to one degree or another.

The other issue which contributes to the problem is the short-sighted nature of a lot of Chinese people. This is probably true in a visual sense as well, but thats not really the point. Chinese will do whats best in the short term e.g. buy whats cheap even if its useless, sell dodgy products because possible punishment would be a relatively long time away. In fact, I'm in a room where the priority is actually going home right now instead of doing their assignment thats due on Friday. Gladly, I doubt anyone of them read this blog on a regular basis.

I don't actually wish to support this claim by any evidence, because this isn't really meant to be a substantial argument, plus I can't be bothered. Its just an inference I've made from my err... rather small period of life experiences.

Chinese, and quite possibly Asian people in general, are damn cheapasses. Yes, so I'm Asian too, and I'm a damn cheapass. From our sample size of one, we can generalise this to the rest of the population.

If you combine the above three propositions, you reach a conclusion where if the Chinese produce a product, we'll make it cheap, sell it even if its dodgy, and then it becomes your problem. If its your problem, we don't care about it anymore, and we won't spend any more resources on fixing your problem because... well... its yours. Following from this, if we're not prepared to fix your problem, we don't feel the need to reduce the problems that you have, that is, inproving the quality. Adding in the short term outlook, we couldn't care less if you are coming back to buy any more stuff later down the line.

In sum:
Selfishness + Short term outlook + Being a damn cheapass = Doing stuff at lowest cost == Low quality goods.

Stories

I should really get back into watching TV. The thing is, advertisments really piss me off. They just keep showing them! I realise that without the ads, there probably wouldn't be much TV, or I'd have to buy everything on DVD.

Its funny how when people tell stories in the form of TV shows, it can hook people. Actually its funny how stories in general can have people wanting more. Everyone seems to want to know 'what happens next'. In some ways, the internet has kind of let people know what happens next without even watching. Websites reveal the storylines to movies, shows and what not. So much so that some people probably don't even watch their TV shows anymore because they already know what happens.

I've never really believed in having stories spoiled. Its really bad when you're watching a movie, usually a thriller or some sort of mystery movie, and then they go and suggest the ending. I find it actually really annoying. I'd rather just sit back and let the people tell their story without any interruptions. I guess thats kind of why I like reading as well.

However, on the flip side, some things are just too predictable. For example, horror movies are the most predictable. Apart from being disgusted at the stuff that happens in them, thats probably why I don't watch horror movies. They're just so boring. Another genre of story which is fairly predicable is drama. Especially cheesy drama like the OC. I watch it because its addictive, and because its funny. Not funny in the conventional sense, but funny in that its... different. You can probably predict whats going to happen next because its the least likely thing to happen. Everything bad seems to always happen to Marissa too.

Somebody tell me a really good story.

P.S. Sorry for not writing a lot recently.