Category: Sharings

My Pa Is Smarter Than Your Dad!

Posted onAuthorShi ZhiXing1 Comment

It’s true.  How many of you can say that your dad made his own hifi-amplifier (high-fidelity) including acid etching the board, wire wrapping, case design, wooden body, front panel design, selection of knobs, flip switches, masking of front panel label, lacquering and final touch up?  Not to mention all the assembly, soldering, and testing.  None?  I thought so. 😛

Oh, and did I mention that he also made from scratch the two multi-cone speakers, each with a bass-woofer cone, (one or two) mid-range cone, and one high-range twitter cone (not that twitter.com twitter!)?  Oh ya, he had them as well.  Including the wooden frame that he sketched, designed and got them cut to size in a factory, which he assembled together, fitted in the yellow noise absorption foam stuffs, and lacquered the whole thing to a perfect finishing.

The wooden diamond pattern gauze cover over the speaker had a brush with me.  I managed to clip one or two off when I played “smash myself into anything like I am driving a car” while I was a kid.  Of course that also got me more than a cursory slap on the wrist.

While all of the above are true, I don’t quite recall myself going around in school trumpeting to my friends about how “My pa is smarter than your dad!”.  Perhaps it was because I just took it for granted that he was able to do that.  It didn’t occur to me that most people’s pa cannot barely tell the difference between a diode and a resistor, much less do anything close to what my pa did.  And so in the past when I watch some movies, in particular, American movies, I was rather amused to see the little kids bickering over whose dad was better.  In fact I don’t recall any of my peers ever getting into this type of
juvenile antics.  Perhaps we were a matured bunch?

Now what if I tell you that all the above about my pa was just something that I think up?  (For the records, it is true and I’ll post the photos as proof! :p … you are also welcomed to visit their humble abode to witness first hand, what real hifi is about! hehe).  What if out of admiration of my pa and perhaps out of pride, I was led to think that he was able to do all that when in fact he could not.  Some kids are known to be self-deluded or confused.  They genuinely believe that their pa is ze greatest and can do everything, including giving birth to kids! :p

What if they start going around criticising other kids’ father or even mother?  Most would just dismiss it as kiddish.  What if they go to play at the neighbours’ place and then ridicule the kid’s parents, deriding them as useless, while trumpeting their father as the greatest?  Or what if they even claim that the neighbour’s house was bought or built by their father.  As you can see, if this persist, this can get quite annoying.

Now, what if the kid then suggest to the neighbour’s kids that they have to agree with him, or else they will not get any toys for their birthdays or that their daddy and mommy will be gone forever.  If you think this is ridiculous, think again.

Look around you and see if you see such juvenile behaviour exhibited by people.  And I am not talking about kids.

I don’t care if the kid is delusional.  Most kids are.  But when the kid goes around imposing his delusion or little fantasy or belief onto others, then I think it is unhealthy.<%

You’re Living in a Computer Simulation, and Math Proves It

Posted onAuthorShi ZhiXing4 Comments

2500+ years ago, the Buddha already taught that “one should observe how conditioned phenomena is like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow / reflection, like dew drops, like a lightning flash”, that consequently, one should and would then not be so attached by it (conditioned phenomena) and be agitated by it.

Here is an interesting article about how we might well be in a dream by an Oxford Philosopher Nick Bostrom:

http://io9.com/#!5799396/youre-living-in-a-computer-simulation-and-math-proves-it

Is your life really your life, or is it actually the dream of a butterfly? Or is it a complex computer simulation indistinguishable from “real” reality? Don’t worry, it’s just a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.

Questions about the nature of reality weren’t invented by high-as-a-kite college sophomores. Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi noticed sometime around 300 BCE that his dreams of being something other than human (a butterfly, most famously) were indistinguishable from his experience being Zhuangzi. He could not say with certainty that he was Zhuangzi dreaming of being a butterfly rather than a butterfly dreaming of being Zhuangzi.

The whole “reality is an illusion” idea has been kicked around by everyone from Siddhartha to the existentialists. It is Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom who is most often associated with the idea that we are living in a computer simulation. His premise is based on a series of assumptions:

1). A technological society could eventually achieve the capability of creating a computer simulation that is indistinguishable from reality to the inhabitants of the simulation.

2). Such a society would not do this once or twice. They would create many such simulations.

3). Left to run long enough the societies within the simulations would eventually be able to create their own simulations, also indistinguishable from reality to the sub-simulations inhabitants.

Continued after the jump below

http://io9.com/#!5799396/youre-living-in-a-computer-simulation-and-math-proves-it

I Don’t Mind Ants Eating My Leftovers, It’s Just that They Have a Tendency to Drown in Them! ಠ_ಠ

Posted onAuthorShi ZhiXing1 Comment

Yes, I’ve said it.  I really don’t mind ants eating my leftovers, it is just that they have a tendency to drown in it.

So my little effort is to ensure that either

  1. I do not have any drinks (even plain water!) left unattended and uncovered.
  2. If ants have started helping themselves to the drink or food, I move them to the sink and drain the drink or food so that they do not drown1 in their food!

    3. n

For the most part, they do a great job cleaning up the leftovers and leave the utensil reading for light washing.  So I leave at peace with them.  :p

I usually finish up my drink and wash up.  But sometimes I leave a cup of water, yes, even plain water on my desk, only to find it swarmed by ants!  There is something about ants these days, they go all over the place even when there is no visible food or drinks around.  Aren’t they supposed to forage for food, and not just go jalan jalan?

Sometimes, they even bite me.  I once tried to endure the bite.  I wondered how much of the ant bite I can endure.  Not much I realised!  To be fair, I lasted probably close to 40+ secs or 1 min.  Problem is, sometimes I am trying to reply to emails, write an article or doing my own sutra / sastra study, and I am afraid I might accidentally crush them.  So I have developed a skill to pick them up skilfully and put them elsewhere.  Then someone suggests that this would get them lost and confused!  Arrgghh … there is no pleasing everyone huh?

Other times, I blow them away.  They seem rather resilient and are supposed to be able to support up to 400 many (502) times their body weight.  And some people say that it may feel like being blown away by a typhoon!  Oh dear!

Until I find a better way to deal with ants already on my body or in my vicinity, in danger of being crushed accidentally by me, I would pick them up or blow them away to safety.

Footnote

1. Ants that in water can often be rescued.  Scoop them from water and remove excess water by carefully dabbing tissue or cloth and absorbing the water.  Then orally blow dry them.  Numerous ants had been ‘rescued’ and ‘revived’ these way.

2. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_weight_can_an_ant_carry

References