Mike’s Blog

Was browsing through the Internet today and came across a powerful speech/sentiment from Senator McGovern of the 1970S. In case you don’t know who he is; he was one of the people most vocal in descent against the Vietnam war, and lived at the time of the Nixon Watergate scandal and ensuing presidential impeachment.

On Sept. 1, 1970, just before the amendment was voted down, McGovern delivered an emotional speech on the Senate floor that would be just as true today:

"Every senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending
50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood.
Every Senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at
Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land - young men
without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes."

"There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think
this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging
out, or national honor or courage. It does not take any courage at all
for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the
flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood
that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and
their lives and their hopes."

"And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some
day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the
burden that the Constitution places on us."

"So before we vote, let us ponder the admonition of Edmund Burke,
the great parliamentarian of an earlier day: "A contentious man would
be cautious how he dealt in blood."

That should have sounded VERY familiar.

Most people have the memory of a goldfish, remembering barely the effects of last year let alone the last president’s effect. No president of America in history i think, has been as damaging to the world and indeed America as has George W. Bush.
How damaging? To list some serious unconstitutional and inhumane acts propagated in recent times here are a few, just off a top of my head:

1. Modification to the interpretation of the Geneva Conventions regarding torture and inhumane treatment, granting himself the ability to choose how to interpret the Geneva convention’s with regards to those he deems as enemy combatant’s.
2. The death of habeas corpus.
3. The abuse of the Patriot Act, which in itself was an abuse of the Constitution.
4. The treatment of both veterans AND active service people in misappropriate spending of the Iraq war budget. Evidenced by testimony of commanders on the ground complaining of insufficient Armour and other tactical gear. Also the recent Walter Reed scandal; how better to repay a young man for his courage in risking his life for his country than to stick his amputated body, either limbs, eyes, innards or genitals, into a rat and mold infested shack that not 30 years ago swam awash with the young men of the Vietnam war. The numbers may be fewer Mr.bush, but thankfully there are a million more people aware of your misdeeds in this era than in the last.

These are but a fraction of Bush’s contribution to the world in his time as Fuhre….sorry President. Each of these I believe easily constitute an impeachable offense. after all, we lost a good but unfaithful president because he got a blow job and lied about it. now we face a president who is so incompetent he cannot even follow up on his own ideologies, let alone the tremendous loss of human life which could easily have been avoided. all wars in history could have been avoided.

Its a sad thing when I watch the news, knowing that human beings have not evolved past the infantile reptilian brain. Fear, revenge, fight-or-flight, such simplistic abstractions so evident in all of Bush’s policies. He believes in good and evil, right and wrong, black and white…so dangerous to simplify the human consciousness into a neat little category such as this, especially when ALL of us live in the Grey, even Bush himself.
I’d like to pose an allegory which i hope one day bush can relate to, as unlikely it may be.

In Iraq everyday men and women and children die in a hail of gunfire or shrapnel. those men and women are often parents. this war has left countless orphaned children, or young men, or young women, bastardized and broken, left in a world all alone.

Picture now one of those children. at first there is no hate, because the shock and overwhelming sadness are paramount. It is human, regardless of race, color, language, we all know this is what we would feel. That child is alone now because of an ill informed, poorly planned (or worse-deliberately ill informed) American conflict, and as most people can relate, the scariest feeling in the world is the dread of being alone.

Skip a few years ahead in that child’s life. perhaps they do not feel alone anymore as much as they did, but deep inside in the very pit of their being something was changed from that loss, and inside every night that nagging thought: "why me and not others".
In walks a powerful new support system, a priest or a cleric, a missionary or a soldier, a man or woman to fill the void. they give advice, support and caring. They introduce the child to others like himself, also lost, alone and scared. They are told about God (by whatever name you call Him), about purpose, sacrifice. They are taught that their loss was unfair. Slowly, they are given hate…then they’re given a gun, or a bomb…and a plan…and a few short years later they’re on a plane crashing through girders and glass, promised martyrdom and a life of meaning…the life that was taken away from them by a bullet or a bomb so long ago.

Simple are the feelings, the chain of feelings, not thought. people rarely think…we are all creatures of habit. hate was taught to those terrorists too, slowly. they’re hatred was fueled, justified…they were not always hate. they were a child once too, and to dehumanize them and say that they were evil misses the point entirely.

A human being should be impeachable for not realizing this simple truth about all humanity, let alone a leader. I pray for the day when everyone knows themselves enough to know their behaviors are mostly like everyone elses.
No need for war then.

P.s. if you’re reading this and thinking its pointless, its just your way of justifying your inaction. at least i think, which is more than what most people can say these days. now go play doTA or whatever :).

ok this is gonna seem really arrogant and whatnot, but its just a rant.

if you know me you know that I’m very active in extra-curricular activities in college. there are two main reasons why i engage in so much activity as compared to those students who just chose to ‘focus on their studies’. firstly, the challenges which you personally face from taking on leadership and other demanding roles is well worth the time and effort, and eventually the accolades and rewards. Secondly is the fact that you get to help so many other people, instead of just complaining about problems.

i find it really, really annoying when i hear students complaining about things around college. for example before i was a leader in the International Student Council, I heard over and over again that clubs and societies in college were terrible. I complained too, but the difference is i stood up and put myself into a solution to the problem.

i find it extremely short-minded to think that the most important thing you can do at university is get good grades. for god’s sake this is not highschool. put some thought into why you’re here. University is meant to be a bridge between highschool and the working world, an opportunity for you to learn about the real world before engaging in it. newsflash, the real world has no exams, and you only get as far as your knowledge, skill, talent and ability to take on new challenges can take you.

so i find it extreeeemly frustrating when i see people turn down great opportunities to learn, grow, get experience, pick up a skill or whatever else…for no good reason, and then they go home and chat online, or play dota or whatever other childish waste of time they choose.

grow up people! only a few years down the track you will be sitting in your job interview and the HR manager will ask "so did you join any clubs and societies? any leadership experience?"
most of you will say no if you’re honest, or yes if you aren’t (for those people, don’t worry, your manager will find out eventually hehehe). i guarantee you that the real leaders who really did take on the responsibility will go much farther much faster.

stop being lazy minded. your Degree is NOTHING and does not in the slightest make you special. the Degree nowadays is the same as a high school diploma, and soon the same will apply to masters…everyone will have a degree that you know in college, so what makes you more hire-able?

think, thats all i want! lol. decide what you want from life. CHOOSE your career, company, or even choose your passion.  if you don’t want to live an average life like everyone else don’t u think u have to live differently from everyone else? have different priorities? not waste time on childish things?

ok that was a workout. if ur pissed reading that just know that it comes from frustration from trying to help develop the student body and having most respond in an ignorant way and acting not interested.

final conclusion…join a club, and don’t just TALK about problems, DO SOMETHING without waiting to be told like your a lemming! god gave u a brain, so do something originial with it!

Rave=Closed

29/02/07 NEWSFLASH: The China Market just took a swift downturn, causing a chain of events leading to a significant decline in the DOW, the biggest hit since 9/11 in fact. I’m an investor and man I love when crashes happen.

Yes that’s right, I said I LOVE market crashes. Most of the people reading this will now think I’m nuts, I mean who on earth could benefit from stocks that suddenly and uncontrollably decrease in value, right? YOU can!

Here’s how:
There are two types of people who invest in the stock market; speculators, and intelligent investors*. unfortunately (or fortunately for me) the majority of people who invest are speculators, essentially gamblers whose investment strategy is based on predicting the future, their emotional reactions to market changes, and greed.  Unless you’re Isaac Mendez from the new hit TV show "Heroes", sorry, but predicting the future is impossible, and frankly not necessary to make a lot of money in equity investments.
Speculators are the base behind Random Walk theory, i.e. that everyday events can somehow effect the value of stocks traded. To put it bluntly, these people have little or no understanding of intelligent investing, and are bound to lose significant amounts of money in the long run.

Real investors are the complete opposite to speculators. Their strategy for investing has little or nothing to do with the day to day changes in stock prices, in fact the less they know about stock prices the more comfortable they feel. They invest for the long term (meaning over 10 years). They don’t rely on dividend payouts to feel their investments are lucrative. For the most part, they are happy with the slow, steady growth of their equity.

How do they do this? Here’s what i think are the most important factors:

1. They know what they are buying. For speculators a share is nothing more than a number which fluctuates wildly daily, they hope to sell when its dropping, and buy when its about to increase. Newsflash, a share is waaay more complex than a number. When you buy a share you are buying a small ownership in company, and a company is people, systems, products, and much much more (all of which can be valued and rated). This means you need to know at least a little about that company, and thats where the tenets of ratio analysis and valuation come in. Every company has a minimum book value for their shares, and a fair market value. If you know the value of a company you can infer the value of its shares, and thereby know when you’re paying over value (bad), or undervalue (Yay, discount!).

The day to day changes mean little when you know the company is, for example, going to grow because they’re investing a great deal in RnD, equity, or just paid off some debt, or took on debt to leverage some growth, and you can only know all that if you carefully analyze and plan your investments.

How can you expect growth when you don’t even know what your company is doing? Stop relying on hot tips and keeping track of market trends. At most you can only predict what can happen tomorrow, let alone a few months down the road, and even then its not worth the effort. Trust me, I’ve been investing a long time and I know very little about market trends. I only look for good companies, or direct/mutual/index funds whose managers share my view on investment strategy (diversification is often a good strategy for beginners).

2. They know when to buy. Here’s why crashes are great for value/intelligent investors:

  Imagine the stock market as a big supermarket. Each share is an item on a shelf. Just like real life you only buy only a small proportion of products on offer, i.e. the products (shares) you like, trust, and of the quality/value/price you want. Now imagine for some reason all the products in the store suddenly went down in price, including the things you normally buy. Great right? That’s exactly what you should be feeling when a market crash hits, you should be seeing a huuuge ‘SALE, MEGA DISCOUNTS’ sign pop up in your head. At least thats what I see.

Sure you might take a hit in the short run, but if you invest carefully and know what you’re buying, you can expect your companies to recover from crashes. Crashes are the best thing for intelligent investors, I could always use more Coca-Cola stock at discount prices :).

3. They buy few, not many. Investing geniuses like Warren Buffet advocate buying only a few
company’s shares in your portfolio (maximum of 6), and when you follow
this rule (i.e. not diversifying your pants off) you minimize your risk
by (hopefully) picking companies that have enough leverage, equity,
customer loyalty, strong management and so on to live though and
recover from a crash. Quality, not quantity, is often the strongest strategy.

There’s lots more that can be said on this topic and I hope i get at least a few people interested in investing. I’ve been investing for 6 years now, and made substantial gains because of planning and care, and at any one time, i have no idea what the share prices of my stocks are and I don’t need to. I’ll be writing another article soon on how to get started investing with little money, if you’re interested, ask me stuff, I’m more than happy to share my knowledge and experience.

*Term used in reference to the great book by Benjamin Graham, "The Intelligent Investor", a.k.a. my Bible of investing. Ben Graham was Warren Buffet’s mentor, for anyone who’s interested.
Other books I recommend for varying viewpoints on equity investment:
"Guide to Investing" by Robert Kiyosaki
"Beating the Street" by Peter Lynch

"The Warren Buffet Way" by Robert G. Hagstrom (can’t remember the other authors)
"The Little Book of Value Investing" … can’t remember the author.

Holy crap!!
Yesterday Senator Clinton announced her bid for the 2008 candidacy for President. That makes the democratic ticket a combination of a woman, a black man named Barack Obama from Illanios, and also a Hispanic (quadrouple  holy crap).

this is a serious landmark in American history and politics! just wanted to make a quick point in why i think its all happening at once though, with my usual cynical analysis. Why all of a sudden such a diverse mix of candidates?…pure and simple…
no rich white guy can stand to profit by fixing the mess made by the Bush administration…lol.
Deficits are ridiculous, and in order to reduce fiduciary risks future white house policies will probably have to burn a lot of bridges with ’special interest groups’ previously so well taken care of by Bush and his band of ‘divinely guided’ retards.
Based on Hillary’s political history (and having the respect not to consider her husband’s infidelity) i think she has the capabilities to turn around the economy and unify rather than divide and conquer. About time the richest and most powerful nation on earth is not driven by testosterone and foolish bravado. Never mind her mid 1990’s failed overhaul of the health insurance system, anyone who can do that with the mess left over from previous presidents would be deserving of the nobel prize for insane awesomeness.

Point of all this…God i hope there will be change. The worst wars in history have all been waged by rich machevillian crackers (lol). Hopefully with a woman and a black man in the running there’ll be someone who understands wrongful persecution and generic labeling, i.e. the basis of discrimination (the underlieing reason all wars are allowed).
I reckon you put an intelligent black man, and an extremely intelligent (and well funded) woman on the democratic ticket and in 8 years the whole world could be at balance. It would only take about 5 years of serious economic and political readjustment to end world poverty and hunger for example (look up TED Talks on Google video if u want to see how exactly).
Ok gotta go, and no one’s gonna read this anyway :P. Make comments if you do.
Cheers!

This time last year i went through all the trouble of making the list of resolutions and goals for 2006. Unfortunately I couldn’t complete nearly as much as what i wanted. but 2006 was a hectic year for me, more so than most anyway! Leading AMR took a great deal of time and energy away from my design work, and lo and behold i wasn’t even rewarded fairly for all my hard work (neither was my entire side of the class).

Anyways, here’s the list of things i wanted to accomplish last year, and how far i got (estimated).

For my Career: Game Design/Design in General
Specific Skills Needed:
Basic Skill: Perspective Drawing, Color Theory, Anatomy Studies, Human, Animal, Creature, Alien, Comic. (altogether about maybe 500++ hours of practice, trying to avoid finalising anything coz it tends to stop my practicing when i ‘finish’ a piece)

Concept Design:
-Character (drawings of bipeds, quardapeds, manypeds, hovering things, winged, fantasy) (20 hours…only!)
-Scene (worlds, cities, caves, dungeons) (ZERO!)
-Architecture (interior, exterior, different themes: gothic, Neolithic) (3-4 hours!)
-Vehicle (hovering, liquid propulsion, fusion propulsion, antiquated, blends of all) (didnt track)
-Game Play (interface concepts, learning methods) (read a lot but created ZERO!)
-Storyboards (character arcs, concepts and themes for story) (20-50 hours - lots of incomplete work)
-Advertising (methods of building in advertising/brand placement) (80 hours)

3D: Box, Polygon, Texturing, Particle Systems, Arrays. (400 hours)
Animation: Rigging, Skinning, Test Animations, Rendering. (400 hours ++)

Programming: C++ Basic (ZERO)
Game Design:
Industry Immersion, History, Growth, Potential Expansion, Market Surveys. (read a great deal but can’t really track how much time i spent cause i read multiple things at same time, bah)

For my Studies:
Grades: D D C C  (only achieved D C C P to my great dismay - gonna stop trying so hard)
Projects: In on time and do them all solo. (in on time yes, solo no but luckily had good teams this semester, ppl getting more serious in latter sems thank god)

For my Health:

-Eat Healthier! (freikkin malaysian food is evil)
-Exercise/Gym 4 times a week. (currently about 2-3 times a week)
-Develop body shape/strength. (i got waay fatter, i think the food caolries much worse, need to work out a lot to just stay in same shape)
-Be able to run 20-30mins straight. (can run 15 mins before dieing lol…but cardio classes can last full hour or more…more intense than running i think, coz of the jumping)

ok 2007 resolutions will be my next post. im happy to say i’ve defined more clearly the way i want my career to go and where i’m going to work and all that. woohoo!

till then!

Taking a break from assignments to get something out of my head.
Last night i watched the new, the last, the end of the x-men trilogy, and one word comes to mind…wtf. Yes i know thats three words, and to you i say bah humbug, and to the writers, directors, producers and yes, some of the actors in x-men 3, BAH HUMBUG! You all have taken some of the best storylines in comic history, some of the most insiring, powerful characters, some of the deepest emotional and character arcs, and condensed them into a fast-food, big-budget-with-no-value, action poo-fest.
notice: spoiler warnings! dont not read ahead if u dont want to not hear the ending*.

*quadruple negative, the only other thing capable of killing Professor X.
i came to terms with the diminished character strenghts from the previous movies in this trilogy. the characters and themes well portrayed were of course Ian MacKellan as Magneto, Rebecca Romaijn-Hotness as Mystique, although she’s not as mysterious since she’s in almost EVERY BLOODY SCENE, and last but certainly not least Partick Stewart as my favorite quadraplegic: Charles Xavier. *On a side note Stewart has now rooted himself as geek icon of the Twientith Century having played both Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise and Professor X so damn well.
i thought it quaint at the beginning of the movie when a few of the students were having a holographic battle and collosus (damn cool) chucks wolverine at some kind of evil machine they’re supposed to kill. moments later the dismembered robot head falls spinning into view…and logan just pops out from behind it after it stops moving. im sorry but, was he hanging onto the head as it fell, quickly moving out of the field of view of the camera as it rotated? i was like…wtf. but i let it go.
not too long later mystique was made human with a cure-dart. now don’t get me wrong…a naked rebecca romaijn (or however u spell it) is good anyday…but please! mystique was one of the most powerful, beautiful and charismatic characters, and she gets done in by a dart shot by a $12/hour security guard. BAH.
other painful moments:
-rapid and rediculous love triangle development between kitty, bobby and marie, aka. shadowcat, iceman, and rogue. and while we’re on the topic of iceman, wasn’t he supposed to be ‘cool’? not some whimpering, sook-faced little wimp so upset his parents dun luv him no more and he cant hump his girlfriend without a defibrilator closeby? sigh, and how cliche was the pyro, iceman face off with conflicting beams…if i havent seen that a thousand times, i mean…it was in a harry potter movie for crap’s sake.

-death of the professor.  i dun think i need to elaborate. BAH HUMBUG.
-death of cyclops. ok i never liked him, but at least let us see his death, not just allude to it. geez.

-the  cure-kid. when i saw the kid supposed to have the mutant gene cure, i knew i’d seen him somewhere before. and lo-and-behold he’s playing exactly the same character as his character in ‘ultraviolet’: a genetically studied subject who’s blood is the cure to a mutation (in ultraviolet the cure for the heamaphages). the casting for this movie was brilliant.
-magneto creates bridge to alcatraz. now this part was impressive, and obviously to demonstrate the power of magneto. but i have to ask: all the brotherhood were on the very last section of bridge on the part that hit alcatraz, why did he make it link up to he other side? escape plan? i dun think so, clearly the human forces enroute would get to the other side, logically trying to block escape. seemed like a lot of wasted effort to me.
-juggernaut…was an imbicile. this guy was imbued with the power of a god, obviously this is the later stage when his power was nullified a bit cause he displeased said god, but still. vinnie jones…every movie he’s in he plays himself, and for x-men i would have liked to have seen him actually play the part rather than just yell: "donT-CHU know oo-i-am? OIM JAGGAR-NAUGHT….BITCH"

i can see him sitting with the script on the day of the shoot.
"you know wot? i fink it neads somfink more…a ‘bitch’ would do good roight there." while pointing to a point along one of his 3 lines in the film. and who would the director be to argue with vinnie. he’d  be dead whats who he’d be…BECAUSE HE’S JUGGERNAUT….bitch.
-magneto loses his power. i mean…come on. did they have to kill/diminish EVERY staple mutant. all the most powerful had to die or become useless for some reason.
-dark pheonix. here i have mixed feelings. the emotional develpment, cg, characterization were all good i think, not to mention the awesome visuals of her rage with the anti-gravity water and such. but she died such a simple death after all that build up. sigh, u know in the comic she had to be trapped and killed on the moon? man…so dissappointing. oh yeah…anyone see Van Helsing? remeber the final pose with Jackman holding Kate Beckinsale just after he killed her? ya, same as Dark Phoenix, with the same crying face. something tells me not much acting breadth there Jackman, go back to broadway!

ok i gotta finish this, was just a rant, sorry for lack of structure to whoever reads this…i.e. kwan.
rating out of 10 stars: 2.5/10. got points for CG, although the cg money was too spread around i think. iceman when fully ice looked terrible, even the ice woman from the beginning credits of ‘tomorrow never dies’ was better. poo on everyone involved!

Okay, i’ve decided to fall into the large majority of people making resolutions for the new year. i don’t know if i’ll be able to finish even a fraction of what i have on the list, as most are fairly ambitious considering how little free time i have. funny thing is how different i feel this year, compared to last. i feel much more mature and directed on my career and my ambitions. i suppose the leadership experience from the ISC has paid off. leading is definitely difficult, and it kinda solidified that if you wanna achieve more than most people you really HAVE to be different in the way you think. some think your crazy, some think ur arrogant, some just dont think big ideas are achievable.
best way is to lead by example i guess, and by that i mean at least try to achieve something rather than give up before even beginning.

For my Career: Game Design/Design in General
Specific Skills Needed:
Basic Skill: Perspective Drawing, Color Theory, Anatomy Studies, Human, Animal, Creature, Alien, Comic.

Concept Design:
-Character (drawings of bipeds, quardapeds, manypeds, hovering things, winged, fantasy)
-Scene (worlds, cities, caves, dungeons)
-Architecture (interior, exterior, different themes: gothic, Neolithic)
-Vehicle (hovering, liquid propulsion, fusion propulsion, antiquated, blends of all)
-Game Play (interface concepts, learning methods)
-Storyboards (character arcs, concepts and themes for story)
-Advertising (methods of building in advertising/brand placement)

3D: Box, Polygon, Texturing, Particle Systems, Arrays.
Animation: Rigging, Skinning, Test Animations, Rendering.

Programming: C++ Basic
Game Design:
Industry Immersion, History, Growth, Potential Expansion, Market Surveys.

For my Studies:
Grades: D D C C C
Projects: In on time and do them all solo.

For my Health:

-Eat Healthier!
-Exercise/Gym 4 times a week.
-Develop body shape/strength.
-Be able to run 20-30mins straight.

will i achieve all above? probably not, but it helps that i have a good base of experience and knowledge in most of the goals. most important is a big increase in my use of free time.
hopefully ill be crossing off one at a time from the list above during the year. till next year then…