How to drive part 2: Car turning ramp radius

I used to think that when going around one of those curvy ramps I should stay on the outside. My reasoning was that the turn would be less sharp, and there would be less centrifugal force so I could still go fast without flipping over. However, I always wondered why turns felt smoother and better whenever I made really tight turns instead of wide turns.

After quick physics reasoning and a recall of a high school formula it becomes obvious that when turning one should stay on the INSIDE.

Centripetal force = (v^2) / r

Circle circumference = pi*2*r

velocity = distance / time

We are judging the viability of bigger vs smaller radius given that we complete a ramp/turn in the same amount of time. For example, if I go around the ramp choosing a wide turn in 20 seconds, vs going around the ramp choosing a tight turn in 20 seconds, which one puts less force on my car?

The tight turn has a smaller r, but also a smaller v. We know that as the r decreases, the v will decrease in a way linearly proportional to r because circumference is linearly proportional to radius, and velocity is linearly proportional to distance (given the same amount of time). But now as you can see from the top equation the v is SQUAREDLY proportional to my centripetal force whereas the r is only linearly proprtional to my centripetal force. Therefore even though the v and the r will decrease at the same rate as the circle gets tighter, that also means that the overall centripetal force is DECREASING as the circle gets tighter (because the v decreasing has a greater effect on the force's value than the r decreasing).

Therefore if you want to get somewhere quickly without flipping over your car the best way is to make a tight turn. Even though you can't go as fast on the turn, the smaller distance you have to cover more than makes up for it. If you take the same amount of time in boths situations, a tighter circle will put less force on your car. Similarly, if you keep constant the amount of force you put on your car in both situations, a tighter turn will be completed sooner.

If this proof is not well-written or needs clarification please let me know.

Asians are bad drivers + the art of saving gas

In this 2-in-1 article I discuss why Asians are bad drivers, and how to save gas.

ASIANS ARE BAD DRIVERS:

Asians are notoriously frugal (because their parents instilled them these ideas or because they value money, etc.). They are trying to save gas and maintenance costs...

-Distance: Asians will maintain a larger distance from the car in front of them than most people. In fact, I usually maintain a distance of 2-4 times the average distance between cars. This has the disadvantage of allowing other cars to cut in; however, it serves the advantage of reducing the frequency of breaking and accelerating. If the car in front breaks, the Asian does not have to hit the breaks every time, and therefore no momentum is lost. Momentum conservation is a key theme in gas preservation.

-Red lights: Asians break the convention of cruising/rushing to the pedestrian line and obediently stopping at the red light. Instead, Asians will slowly drift towards the red light, hoping for it to turn green so they can continue accelerating without sacrificing all of their momentum.This will piss a lot of people off and they will complain that the Asian is driving too slowly.

-Shade: Asians will hog shade from the truck beside them if it is a very sunny day, and if traffic is slow.This will piss people off because the Asians will often stop prematurely at a red light, or go slower than usual during a traffic jam with an ever-growing distance between himself and the car in front.

-Going uphill: Asians will try to start going uphill very fast, then gradually slow down over the course of the uphill stretch, to save gas (more on this later). This will obviously piss a lot of people off, particularly if the Asian is in the fast lane and in the "slow" phase of going uphill, or if for some reason the Asian had to slow down due to cars in front of him and is now cruising at 60 mph refusing to go faster until the incline ends (I always switch out of the fast lane if this happens but sometimes there are too many cars in the other lane, and also, even next-to-fast lane cars don't want to be stuck behind 60 mph; for the record I blame the cars in front of me that were going at 65 mph which forces me to slow from 70 to 60).

DISCLAIMER: If you are offended by this (for which I do not blame you, even if you are not Asian) by all means feel free to substitute "Max Loh" for "Asians", because I basically just talked about how I drive.

THE ART OF SAVING GAS:

-DISTANCE: Distance is great not only for safety purposes but also for saving gas. If the car in front of you breaks and you are only 5 feet behind him, you will be forced to break, sacrificing your momentum. However, if you are 100 feet behind him you can simply take your foot off the gas pedal; chances are he will start accelerating again after a couple seconds anyway. This "buffer" reduces the amount of breaking and accelerating. Many aggressive drivers like to rush from car to car, always accelerating then breaking then tailgating. These people are not good at saving gas.

-RED LIGHTS: Do not simply cruise/accelerate to the red light and then break at the end like a normal person. In fact, you must apply the brakes UNCOMFORTABLY EARLY. At a red light you always want to maximize your "expected speed" when the light turns green. There are probably advanced statistics models for how to calculate this, but they are not practical and we must rely on estimation. If you are going too fast, you minimize the DURATION over which you can take advantage of your leftover momentum. If you are going too slow, you minimize the QUANTITY of your leftover momentum but increase the duration for which you can take advantage of said leftover momentum. So, one must strike a middle ground. Always apply your brakes such that the "expected turn green point in time" coincides with your car hitting the pedestrian line. If there are one or more cars waiting at the light, the problem becomes much more complicated as you have to account for the time it takes all of them to begin moving.

-GOING UPHILL: ALWAYS START GOING UPHILL AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. A car going uphill for 1 mile at 100 mph will use much less gas than a car going uphill for 1 mile at 10 mph. Physics explanation: Assume no air resistance, blablabla etc, a car needs a force of F just to keep it moving at same speed or staying still, if going uphill. Would you rather apply F (aka use gas) over the course of 5 minutes or 2 minutes? The less time you need to apply F, the better. Also, INCREASE YOUR SPEED DURING VALLEYS. There will be uphills and downhills throughout your driving and you should try to "increase your speed" (I use this term instead of accelerate, which might mean simply pressing the gas pedal, which you should always be doing) while at the bottom of a downhill to uphill scenario.

Physics explanation: Assume a model in which we have a car that goes downhill for 1 mile then uphill for 1 mile. Now, given an impulse F*t which we can all agree is representative of the amount of gas you will be using, and you can only apply this impulse either during the downhill or during the uphill stretch. Now, common sense tells us that the end result will actually be the SAME no matter what, because change in momentum = impulse. In fact I thought this for a long time and was convinced that my uphill gas-saving strategy was based on superstition.

However, COUNTEREXAMPLE (refer to NICE PHYSICS DRAWING): Assume the uphill stretch is a bit longer than the downhill stretch, such that if you did nothing at all, your car would roll down the downhill, and up the uphill... almost crossing the finish line... but then roll backwards back down the hill. Let's imagine you are allowed to use F force for 60 seconds, and F is EXACTLY the amount of force necessary to keep the car either staying still or same speed while on the uphill stretch. So if you apply this force F at the near-end of your car's journey, where it's almost crossing the finish line and its velocity is exactly 0 and it's about to fall back down, you will net a whopping ZERO METERS in distance no matter how long you accelerate for! Because F is exactly the amount of force necessary to keep the car either staying still or same speed while going uphill. If you were to apply the force at some other time such as when the car was going fast at the bottom of the valley, one can clearly imagine that this would increase the car's velocity and allow it to clear the finish line. So how is this paradox explained?

When gravity comes into play, your NET impulses are actually different, even though the impulse due to the effort from the car is identical in both situations. Instead of pointing out why these are different, which is hard even for me to wrap my mind around, allow me to re-phrase this qusetion in terms of energy, which is better suited for the math in this question, rather than momentum. Now we all know that more speed = more kinetic energy, and change in kinetic energy = WORK. and work = F*d. Now it becomes easy to envision why it's better to floor that accelerator while going fast rather than while going slow. Or, to put it more accurately, at the peak of gravity's helping you rather than at the peak of gravity's hindering you. For the SAME AMOUNT OF TIME spent flooring the pedal (e.g., 1 second), in one situation you get to apply that force across a greater distance because gravity has already helped you attain a nice speed to get a lot of F*DISTANCE per F*TIME, whereas in the other situation you only apply that force for a lesser distance as gravity has worked against you and reduced your gains for a given impulse.

PLEASE RESPOND; PHYSICS NERD DISCUSSIONS ARE HIGHLY ENCOURAGED.

nice physics drawing. d on both sides are equal. Theta on both sides are equal. Epsilon basically just means "a small value" making the right side a tad bigger than the left side.

Why Men Like Lesbian Scenes

Lots of guys give really retarded reasons for why they like lesbo scenes. Girls are always so confused!

But FEAR NOT. I finally have a technical psychological explanation of why we (men) like lesbo porn so much. It all dawned upon me while I was gazing at a lesbo picture I found to use for my dream note. Contrary to popular belief, it is not because of the absence of penises (though that may have a minor impact as well).

Reason 1: Sympathetic response.

You see, naturally when humans see other humans we develop "sympathetic reactions" aka we feel things in place of someone in the picture. If the presence of the male is overpowering in a picture, you might find yourself subconsciously sympathizing with the woman. In this instance you might even imagine a man's touch on you as part of your automatic sympathetic response, even if it feels unpleasant. You are getting in touch with your "gay side" which statistically/evolutionarily speaking is probably not as strong as your straight side, and may even be negligible!

Now, consider lesbian photos...

The beauty of lesbo scenes stems from the fact that no matter whom the viewer subconsciously "chooses" to sympathetically respond to, he will find his heterosexual response stimulated by the notion of feeling up a perfect curvy body, and will thus always feel great. In my viewing of one such photo, I observed that my sympathetic response rapidly switched between the females, resulting in me being able to feel both of them up virtually SIMULTANEOUSLY in a POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP.

Reason 2: The illusion of abundance.

How do you feel when you look at a hetero picture? You may feel slightly turned on (or not, if you are desensitized to such things), but the feeling is overshadowed by jealousy. The viewer cannot comfortably put himself in the shoes of the male because he knows that the dude is getting the girl rather than he. He might even become combative and develop a desire to PUNCH THAT DOUCHE IN THE FACE (this is a highly exaggerated description of my reaction, which involved only minimal jealousy). This arouses feelings of resentment which curtail the viewer's arousal.

Now look at a lesbian photo. Note your greatly reduced levels of jealousy due to the absence of males. In such a scene with a plethora of females and an absence of males, we are subconsciously led to believe that the world is full of hot babes who, ***lacking access to males, must resort to each other for sexual release*** (this is a key point, especially to all girls who say "but they're lesbian so they wouldn't go for you anyway"). No matter the background story or nature of the scene, this is the subconscious illusion that we create from watching such images. And it feels very good because it means we can have sex with all of them and give them lots of babies, with absolutely no competition.

And those, my friends, are the REAL reasons that men like lesbo scenes.

Disclaimer: I do not really play favorites with depictions of lesbian vs heterosexual sex. This entire article is extrapolated from my response to ONE hot pic of two lesbians in a shower.

Do You Feel Sorry For Pedophiles and/or Animal-philes? A Scandalous Survey.

I just saw Doubt (2008).

Pedophiles and animalphiles are distinct from other people of uncommon sexual desire (such as LGBT community) because many argue that the objects of their desire have no ability to consent. They are shunned by society even in comparison to LGBT's, but for what reasons?

1. Are animals capable of consent? I would think that if an animal did not give any signs of resistance and orgasmed then it would qualify as consent, no? Who are we to say that they "can't think for themselves and therefore it is bad for them"?

2. Are children capable of consent? Children are humans aka pretty damn smart and would probably give resistance if they did not like something. Anyway puberty hits as early as 9. Some say children just don't know any better or don't know what they want or are confused, but I am averse to that sort of PC fluff-talk and would like evidence to support it.

Whether or not animals or children are capable of consent, I feel sorry for all those weird people. They did not ASK to be born with such strange sexual desires. The only reason these people are branded as disgusting creepers who deserve no sympathy, is that society is full of myopic band-wagoners who are too pea-brained to place themselves in someone else's shoes.

3. Do you feel sorry for pedophiles and/or animal-philes? Why or why not?

stand up against anti-racist propaganda

-At least two of my friends have reported that an ethnic studies class they took spread anti-white ideas. For example, white men only date Asian women because they are exotic.

-Once I told an indian dude in judo that black people are usually born with a greater proportion of fast-twitch muscles, suitable for explosive movements like sprinting and jumping. You know what he said? "That's racist!" People these days. I wonder what he would have said if I told him that Asian people are shorter than white people.

-Ethnic studies classes always say this: "Race is cultural, not biological. Everything is a cultural construct, and there are no physical differences." WTF? They are basically denying that white people are taller than asian people, hiding their head in the sand and spreading their gospel that every race is genetically identical.

-Ethnic studies classes always emphasize that every race has the same intelligence and ability. That is almost certainly a lie. We do not have enough knowledge to conclude whether or not all races have the same innate genetic intelligence. Given all genetic differences between races of the world, it doesn't even matter if our DNA is 99.99% the same: Obviously this 0.01% can make a huge difference in facial attributes and bone density, so why can't it affect other things such as learning potential? Here's an analogy: Bubba and Bubbette have two children who are not twins. One is orange and one is blue (note my careful choice of colors). The orange one gets and education and the blue one doesn't. In 1950 America proclaims that the blue one is inferior. In 2010 America proclaims that both have identical intelligence. BOTH CLAIMS (racist and anti-racist) HAVE NO SUBSTANTIATING EVIDENCE.

-Ethnic studies classes would have us believe that certain minorities, such as black women and Asian men, are perceived as ugly because of the brainwashing media and Hollywood depicting white people as angelic beauties. They never bothered to consider that some people might really just tend to be ugly! Face is an important universal identifier of attractiveness, ingrained by evolution and TRANSCENDING culture, and different races have different faces. They also never bothered to consider that Asians are very non-hairy, which is a FEMININE feature. Females do not have chest hair, and neither do most Asian men. And most girls do not like girly men; this is also evolutionary rather than cultural, for obvious reasons.

-Music classes would have us believe that Western musical harmony is widespread because of cultural imperialism. They say that as babies we would not prefer one system over another. However, let's note some important facts: The Asian pentatonic scale and the Middle Eastern phrygian minor scale are both SUBSETS of Western chromatic tonality! This means that you can create foreign styles with the Western system, but you cannot create Western music with the foreign system. It therefore comes as no surprise that each of these cultures saw value in enriching their music with new colors. In turn, Western music was also enriched with foreign elements, so it's not like the spread was one-directional.

The civil rights movement involved focus on equality for human beings, skepticism towards propaganda like "whites are superior," and committing to what is right. I ask you now to maintain this attitude towards the new rising tide. Remain a TRUE liberal, and don't hop on the bandwagon of liars out of SHARED FEAR of racism.

Ideas for the future of gaming

Games are becoming more and more cinematic, featuring almost-photorealistic graphics, 7.1 surround sound (better than a home theater), stereotypical Hollywood music (not a bad thing), and stereotypical Hollywood special effects (not a bad thing either).

After all the technological advances recently made, the biggest pitfall of modern games is still the mode of input. Allow me to explain.

Here I am playing the story for Modern Warfare 2. This scene is set in a sub-urban setting that uncannily resembles Pleasanton. We're driving down a small street in a tank and I see Pleasanton-ish houses to either side, one of which is hanging an American flag from their wall. The unmistakable American format of the "Speed Limit: 25" sign is an intense reminder that this war is being fought in the US. I think to myself, "holy shit this is intense; I've never played a war game set in such a familiar place." And now there are people shooting at me, and I have to run for cover. Behind a house with wooden fences that look exactly like the ones we have in Pleasanton. Oh, and there's 3D sound.

Given all this awesomeness you'd think we'd have invented by now a way to simulate running around and crouching. But no. Just like 10 years ago I still used WASD and the mouse to move. To sprint faster all I have to do is press shift. Oh so hard. In fact the funniest part was the intense scene in which I have to pull a knife out of my stomach to throw it at someone, and it takes like a whole minute to pull it out because I am in pain, and the screen is all blurry and intense, and... the way to take it out is to press F really fast.


Ideas for the future of gaming:

1. An omni-directional treadmill on which you can run. People are trying to develop something like this but so far, demonstrations have not been able to go beyond walking speed.

2. 3D goggles or contact lenses that span your entire vision. This is the one I'm iffy about. Even with one eye closed, we still can choose where to focus. Is it possible to simulate focusing on 50 meters away with the screen is 0.1 inches away? Dunno.

3. High-resolution "texture" (in a literal, not graphical sense) gloves. Each finger of the glove will have a matrix of tiny "pixels" that can be raised or lowered. A rough material will probably have staggered raised pixels. A smooth material will have all pixels at the same level. To simulate sliding your hand across something, simply perform translation on the pixels as you would an LCD screen.

4. A way to simulate parkour: Is there some way to simulate doing a pull-up by using a full-bodied suit with joint locks and strength resistance at every joint, and a treadmill that can also rise and lower in elevation? What about a cat grab (parkour move)? I've been thinking about this and can't come up with a solution. I think maybe if the suit was given an extremity that can stably attach to the ceiling, it would work. Or the treadmill can spontaneously spawn obstacles when you get into range, by folding and unfolding wood really fast.

Feel free to steal any of these ideas as long as it means progress will ensue. I look forward to the day that I can play Mirror's Edge with my entire body instead of just mouse and keyboard.

Oh and I know someone might tell me it would be simpler to just "do this stuff in real life." But it is hard to jump across a 20-foot chasm between two skyscrapers in real life, while pursued by a mob of machine gunning helicopters.

The Ultimate Philosophical Question

One of the most intriguing questions in philosophy (and religion I suppose) is "why was there a world, instead of nothingness?" Well, I've got an even scarier question. It is:

Why is there such a thing as your first-person consciousness? (from my point of view, I substitute "your" for "my")



That question is the ultimate question and sadly slips by many people's brains. I have pondered it since I was three. It was extremely hard for me to word, and I tried to ask my friend this question years ago to no avail; he kept misunderstanding me. He kept saying "because I was lucky enough to be born into this world," which, although true, is completely unrelated to my question.

Hopefully, now that I have worded it a bit better, people will understand the question. In a nutshell, what I am asking is "why isn't the world just full of he's and she's? Why was there a ME?" WARNING: I am not marveling at my fortune for having been born, or put forth in the world, or existed or whatever; instead, I am marveling that there is such a thing as a "me" consciousness in the first place.

Do you understand my question? If so, please discuss, or offer better wordings.

The Ultimate Philosophical Question

One of the most intriguing questions in philosophy (and religion I suppose) is "why was there a world, instead of nothingness?" Well, I've got an even scarier question. It is:

Why is there such a thing as your first-person consciousness? (from my point of view, I substitute "your" for "my")



That question is the ultimate question and sadly slips by many people's brains. I have pondered it since I was three. It was extremely hard for me to word, and I tried to ask my friend this question years ago to no avail; he kept misunderstanding me. He kept saying "because I was lucky enough to be born into this world," which, although true, is completely unrelated to my question.

Hopefully, now that I have worded it a bit better, people will understand the question. In a nutshell, what I am asking is "why isn't the world just full of he's and she's? Why was there a ME?" WARNING: I am not marveling at my fortune for having been born, or put forth in the world, or existed or whatever; instead, I am marveling that there is such a thing as a "me" consciousness in the first place.

Do you understand my question? If so, please discuss, or offer better wordings.

Music is like food

Traditionally, people liken music to traditional visual arts, such as painting or sculpting. This is rather erroneous. Music is more like food than anything else.

-There is the "composer" (the person who invented the recipe) and there is the "performer" (the person who cooks the food). The composer is credited as the intellectual creator but the performer has the freedom to insert his own artistic interpretations/deviations, just like in cooking. Some "folk songs" (well-known popular recipes, e.g. burrito) have been around for millenia but people are always finding new ways to "remix" them.

-Music and food are both artistic creations that cater towards the masses. We have our Britney Spears (McDonalds), Coldplay (In-N-Out), and Radiohead (Chipotle). The food n00bs who like sugary milk chocolate tend to also like tasteless music. The food pros who dislike sweets usually avoid bad music.

-Often, a band will be famous for one or two songs, e.g. "The Eagles are ok, but their song Hotel California rocks my socks." Similarly, some restaurants are famous for just one or two dishes.

-The average person, upon hearing a song, feels emotions but cannot identify the exact pitches being played. A skilled musician hears a song and knows exactly what notes and chords are being played by what instruments. Similarly, the average person, upon tasting some food, feels some emotions but cannot identify the exact ingredients being used. A skilled chef tastes some food and knows exactly how much salt and what types of oil were used.

-Skilled chefs (such as the ones featured on the TV program Iron Chef) are often creative, thinking of new ways to make their food more uniquely tasteful and beautiful. However, food doesn't have to be cooked by a top chef to be enjoyable; it can be as stereotypical and uncreative as a hamburger or ice cream cone. Similarly, skilled composers strive to find a way to affix a unique sound or style to their music, but some people such as Jason Mraz still find success in the extremely overused I V vi IV chord progression. In either case, whether it is original or stereotypical, the end product must still be enjoyable.

This is why the new 21st century "avant-garde" musicians are going down the wrong path. These people pride themselves with composing music that sounds somewhat interesting and extremely horrible. Imagine if a chef mixed together some orange juice, syrup, vinegar, poo, and eggs together into an ornate bowl and said, "Voila, zis is avant garde! I am proud of my creation because normal people will never eat it!" Perhaps if avant-garde musicians treated their music like food rather than modern art, they would realize that originality isn't everything, and that the end product must still be tasty.


Catering to the inferior half of America

Piracy is not stealing

Using bittorrent to download something is not equivalent to stealing a DVD from a retail store. I'm tired of these public messages that say "would you steal a DVD? Because piracy is the same thing." It's not.

Piracy usually involves downloading something for free that you wouldn't have bought anyway, e.g. torrenting a $500 program that you wouldn't pay $500 dollars for, or even torrenting a $5 movie that you wouldn't pay $5 for.

When you steal, the store or original company loses a physical product, which translates to monetary loss. When you download, you make a copy, which translates to free stuff out of thin air, without any loss for the company (unless you would have bought it if piracy were not an available option, which is rare).

Piracy does create significant revenue loss by discouraging the purchase of items. There are people who used to buy expensive products that have turned to piracy. However, piracy enables the underprivileged to get their hands on expensive programs that they would never have bought.

Example: If you never wanted to buy Microsoft Office in the first place but ended up downloading it for free, then you technically did not decrease Microsoft's revenue at all.

Analysis of the "Saying gay is offensive" argument

In this in-depth analysis, I refute the validity of the claim that using "gay" in place of "stupid" is offensive towards homosexuals.

Please examine the following statements:

"That class is so gay."
"That class is so retarded."
"That class is so stupid."
"That class is so lame."

As you can see, all three statements above are misleading and do not represent the person's true sentiment: that the class is displeasing. "Gay" literally means that the class itself is homosexual, which is impossible because the class is an abstract concept and does not have a sexual orientation. "Retarded" means that the class is mentally ill, which is again impossible for the very same reason. "Stupid" means that the class is unintelligent, which is impossible because the class does not have a brain. Lastly, "lame" implies that the class is disabled, which is obviously impossible because the class does not have body parts.

One can argue that using these words in place of "displeasing" implies that gayness, retardness, stupidity, and lameness are very displeasing attributes. People who are gay, retarded, stupid, or lame are minorities that are being picked on as we use these conventions. While this argument has merit, it must be considered equally for all words "gay," "retarded," "stupid," and "lame," so as to not give an unfair advantage to homosexuals over other minorities such as disabled people. For example, one cannot say that it's alright to say "lame" but not to say "gay," because that would arbitrarily imply that gay people take priority over disabled people, which is DISCRIMINATION.

Because all variants of "this class is displeasing" are equally flawed in technical grammatical logic, opponents of using "gay" in place of "stupid" would have to devote their lives to convincing everyone to say "displeasing," not only in place of "gay," but also in place of "retarded," "stupid," and "lame."

This is silly and unfeasible, and would make everyone sound Victorian and/or British.

Therefore we should keep saying gay.

Increase your productivity

Classic Max Loh scenario:
Max on cell phone: Hay babe let's play ultimate
Bad Person #1: Hell naw I have a midterm in 2 weeks!
Max on cell phone: Hay babe let's play ultimate
Bad Person #2: Naw dawg I gots an essay due in 3 days!

"I have a midterm in 2 weeks" (or even 3 days) is NO EXCUSE for refusing to play Ultimate Frisbee, to swim, to play Starcraft, or to do parkour. Only "I have a midterm tomorrow" is acceptable.

Very few students I know work at full speed. "Full speed" can differ from person to person but the fact is, if you haven't done either of the two things below you have never worked at full speed. These are the only two methods to achieve full speed:

1. Set up a reward system.
This was my system back in those middle school days, when my mom had utmost power over me. I was addicted to Diablo 2. My mom might let me play Diablo 2 if I finished my homework. I finished my homework quickly so I could reward myself with some Diablo 2. Why not just pretend to finish homework? you might ask. WELL THAT KINDA DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE DOESN'T IT

2. Procrastinate as much as possible.
If it's an essay, procrastinate until you expect yourself to finish about 2 hours after your regular bedtime. Allot one page per hour. For example, if I have a 5-page essay due tomorrow and my regular bedtime is 1:00am, I procrastinate until 10:00pm. You will realize that working under pressure greatly increases speed without sacrificing quality! You might be able to achieve up to 2 pages per hour, rather than 1. If it's a midterm, procrastinate until some arbitrary time exactly one day before the midterm. You will find that with only 1-5 hours of study, you can achieve the same grade as you usually do on tests for which you study up to 20 hours!

Disclaimer: If the assignment in question is particularly interesting or exciting, neither of these methods are necessary for "full speed" productivity.

Most people start early and work slowly because they have never summoned the courage to experiment with more efficient work ethics. I hope you apply either of the two tested and proven principles to your studies. It will increase your productiveness, increase your free time, and decrease my anger at you for not playing ultimate frisbee.

Asians suck at English

Last night I was chilling with some Asian friends. Adam made a remark about how someone's fingers are very "dexterious" (placing emphasis on "TER" as in dexterity). I told him that the correct word is "dexterous" (also spelled dextrous, emphasis on DEX). He did not believe me and maintained that the correct word was "dexterious." Jason, another Asian, sided with Adam's logic, saying "yeah, since the noun is dexterity, the adjective is probably dexterious."

There were eight Asians total in our group. I asked around, certain that someone would know the correct answer and side with me that "dexterious" isn't even a word. But to my surprise, NOT A SINGLE PERSON KNEW. And Jason and Adam still believed I was wrong. So I had to google the word later just to prove Adam wrong.

If there were just a single WHITE PERSON there he/she would have known the answer and sided with me. To give you an idea of what I mean, let me just say that the FIRST WHITE PERSON I asked about this (after the incident) knew that the correct word is "dexterous," but EIGHT ASIANS did NOT have ANY IDEA. Bottom line is Asians are all FOBs, despite what you might think, and they fucking suck at English.

Tropicana Scam

Today I went to Walgreens and saw a "Tropicana 50" that boasted 50% less sugar and calories than their regular orange juice. Being the non-sweet-tooth type of guy, I stupidly bought it, thinking that less-sweet orange juice sounded appealing. I thought they used high-tech reverse osmosis to take out sugar from real orange juice.

What Tropicana failed to mention was that "Tropicana 50" also has 58% less ORANGE JUICE. All they did was DILUTE IT WITH WATER and even ADD ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER. And it cost the same price. Tropicana are fucking scammers.

I was naturally suspicious at first, so I examined the nutrition facts, and even the ingredients. But I didn't read the FINE PRINT of the ingredients. Tropicana had deviously RE-ADDED vitamins and minerals that were lost, thus allowing the nutrition facts to remain IDENTICAL to the 100% orange juice. SUCH BASTARDS

It tasted worse.

Green Dot Scam

Winning the $100 prize at the talent show has given me the opportunity to add one more thing to the long list of things that I hate: The Green Dot Visa Prepaid Card. I don't even have the card yet, because I am supposed to "activate" it before they mail me my debit card (in 7-10 business days).

The instructions state that I can activate online OR by calling 1-866-443-6227. However, after completing the long, tedious activation process online (they even made me give me social security number!), the website informed me that I have to call 1-866-443-6227 to "complete" my activation. So I called this number and the automated voice-recognition computer answered me and told me my name was "Ooh!" even though I said my last name is L-O-H. I hung up when I realized that it was just asking me the same exact questions as the online activation, forcing me to do the entire process all over again.

So if the instructions said activate online OR by phone, why did the website want me to call the phone number even after I finished online activation? Why does the process of claiming my money take longer than it's worth? I am beginning to think that this is all a big scam. I have temporarily given up on redeeming my troublesome $100 prize.

As expected, google yielded some satisfying results of others who hate Green Dot:
http://www.lockergnome.com/tuxedojericho/2007/11/04/greendot-more-like-scamdot/
http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/1048788-1.html

On a lighter note, the shirt that I won, which says "Most Talented Berkelean in Unit 1," is quite awesome.



Edit: I finally received the card. But today I found out that someone had secretly signed me up for "premiere membership." I have not used the card at all but my balance is now down to $70.10, from the original 100 dollars. This "premiere membership" is nothing that any sane person would ever purchase, so obviously the workers there are instructed to sign every customer up for it, even though I decidedly refused EVERY special offer.

Consider this: Someone put 100 dollars onto a card as a gift for me, for winning the talent show. Now, only 70 dollars remain. 30 dollars have already been STOLEN by the company.

I believe that the company is made of highly sophisticated scammers. It offers services identical to most debit cards, but they slowly steal your money with secret fees. I do not believe they are affiliated with VISA, although they stamp their cards with the VISA logo. It is impossible to sue them because they are a rogue company with no known location (only a P.O. box).

I will be contacting customer service soon and hopefully resolve this problem. I doubt it will work, though, since their primary objective is probably to steal social security numbers and money.

My WoW bot got banned :(

Just thought I'd like to bitch about my problems here.

My friend claims to make 30-40 dollars per day running his bot* on World of Warcraft and selling the gold he earns for cash**. This inspired me to write my own bot, because I need money. My parents are always watching how much money I use via bank statements and they get suspicious when I buy too much food (they think I'm buying drugs with it or something).

*bot: a program that does shit for you automatically so you can go to class or sleep or have a life while your character does shit in the game.

**lots o' people like to buy gold (World of Warcraft currency) with real cash using techniques such as Paypal.

So I bought WoW for 20 bucks, wrote up a pixel-detection fishing bot, and started to make some money.

At first, business was slow and I only earned 5.50 US dollars worth of gold in 2 weeks. But I had GLORIOUS PLANS to improve my bot and automate even more tasks to earn up to 10 US dollars per day.

Unfortunately today I received an email from Blizzard Entertainment informing me that my account had been banned on the grounds of "manipulating the economy." I find it highly ironic that they banned me for flooding the game economy with little fishies, but not for botting, which is the more serious offense!

I got so depressed that I sent them this confession email as a small joke. I doubt I will get a response:



[Dear WoW account administration,

Today I discovered that my account (theguy126, US) was banned from World of Warcraft without prior notice, for "economy manipulation."

I know you do not condone botting or selling gold or any sort of that thing, but please realize that WoW is my only source of income. I am a UC Berkeley student with an inadequate mealplan, and I often need to buy food with my own money. As a student, I do not have the time to find a job or to work part-time. My parents provide me with cash, but they become suspicious that I am spending cash on other dubious things when they see the bill (even though I only buy food).

My bot on WoW earns me a very small amount of real-world cash below minimum wage (at best, 2 dollars per day). It is a pixel-detecting, intelligent fishing bot that I wrote by myself after hours of tedious hard work. It is self-sustainable and "learns" to adjust certain variables to reliably recognize the fishing bobber, and does not require specification of whether it is "night" or "day" or what color the bobber is. I was planning to improve its effectiveness by having it automatically auction the fish, and also automatically alternate between multiple realms -- this would earn maybe up to 10 dollars per day. I was very depressed when I discovered that my account was banned. The hours I spent working on my masterpiece Auto-it bot were wasted.

Please do not take away my only source of income for food. I am dead serious when I say that the only things I buy with my money are food, milk, and orange juice. Since my mealplan is inadequate, I have no cash to spare for extra things. I don't even play WoW for fun; in fact, I bought WoW for the sole reason of making cash. I was inspired by my friend who claims to earn 40 dollars per day botting on WoW.

Please, reactivate my account so I won't have to go hungry. Like I said, my parents provide me with cash, but I need to earn some of my own money in order to eat as much as I want without feeling remorse or fearing suspicion from my parents. The amount that I earn is hardly worth anything to you, but it helps to keep me from starvation. I am very serious about this (I weigh only 140 pounds and need to gain weight).

Sincerely,
Max

P.S. despite the somewhat joking tone of my email, everything I say is completely true (my parents will still let me buy food, but I really do want to eat whatever I want without feeling remorse, and I only weigh 143 pounds), and I really would appreciate it if my account were reactivated.]

I can see cells in my eyes

The following is not a dream.

Last night I couldn't sleep, so there I lay staring at a pinprick of my light without my glasses. To any near-sighted person including myself, a pinprick of light without glasses appears as a blurred halo of light. The halo pulsated, growing smaller and larger as my eyes naturally adjusted their focal point repeatedly back and forth. I thought, "Hey, maybe if I can will my focal point to change enough, the halo of light will eventually converge to a single point and I won't be near-sighted anymore!" But I couldn't do it.

So then I had a better idea. I wondered, "Are there more details inside this 'blurry' halo?" I directed my attention to the details of the "blur," and found that it was not blurry at all. The halo was actually composed of tiny circles. I thought to myself, "This looks uncannily similar to what I would see under a microscope slide in high school biology." I looked more closely at the tiny circles. I blinked. They moved.

Naturally, I was skeptical. Hell, if someone told me they could see cells in their eyes and wrote this note, I wouldn't believe them at all. But gradually, after staring and blinking a lot, I became convinced that these were, indeed, CELLS ON THE TIP OF MY PUPIL. By staring at a fixed light in darkness, I essentially turned my eye into a LIGHT MICROSCOPE, with the slide being the tip of my pupil. I think it only works because I am severely near-sighted.

By the way, these are not floaters. If you tell me I am seeing floaters I will punch you in the face. I've noticed floaters since I was 5.

You can see cells too! (But only if you're severely near-sighted, like -900 or more). Here are some easy steps!

1. Make sure the room is dark.
2. Take off your glasses.
3. Cover one eye (if you leave both eyes uncovered you will be seeing cells from both eyes at the same time, which would be confusing).
4. Stare at a pinprick of medium-brightness light about 5 feet away (this should appear as a blurry halo).
5. Focus on this light for a minute or so. Try to catch what's going on inside the blur.
6. Close your eye exactly half-way such that your eyelid is covering half of the halo of light. You should now be seeing the bottom semi-circle half of the halo.
7. Open your eyelid all the way. Notice the WATER MARK you left behind on the halo (it should appear as a thick double-membrane line dividing the halo). This should be enough to convince you that what you are seeing is in your eye on the cell level, not in the light.
8. If you're still not convinced, blink a lot. Notice how the cells at the top layer move and slide with the blink, and momentum carries them forward as it should, but they slow down due to a viscosity in the liquid they live in. Also notice that deeper-layered cells remain stationary.

Enjoy, if you're near-sighted.

How Altruistic Are You, Really?

How Altruistic Are You, Really?
The Ultimate Survey for the Intellectual.


Intro (skip to "survey" if desired):

Technically, according to Max's philosophy, even altruistic acts are selfish, because it is impossible to voluntarily do anything we don't want to do; it's a contradiction, see? "Voluntarily" doing what we "don't want..." is a paradox.

I could give away all of my money and property to charity today; but it would still be, at heart, a selfish act to satisfy my desire to help a lot of people.

I could jump in front of a friend and take a bullet, sacrificing my life; but it would still be, at heart, a selfish desire to save my friend's life out of love.

It therefore follows that every action done on purpose MUST have spawned from our wanting to do it in the first place. So our actions are ALWAYS going to be selfish -- even if that action is helping everyone in the world and making oneself suffer.

But still... Just ignore that for now, and take this survey about altruism.




Survey:

1.
Assume you love a person, who will now be referred to as "Person."

a. Would you still love Person if Person had no hair?
b. Would you still love Person if Person had no hair or face?
c. Would you still love Person if Person had no hair, face, or voice?
d. Would you still love Person if Person lost Person's hair, face, voice, and limbs?
e. Would you still love Person if Person had no body and was simply a brain in a jar with personality and memories?

f. Assume there exists a random ugly person who you hate, who will now be referred to as "Ugly." If Person's brain were to be exchanged with Ugly's brain, would you still love Person, now trapped in Ugly's body?

g.
Assume that Person's brain and Ugly's brain are restored, and all the limbs/face/voices are restored, and Person and Ugly are both normal people just like they were to begin with.

But then a scientist discovers how to isolate "consciousness" from the human brain. You see this evil scientist exchange Person's "consciousness" with Ugly's "consciousness," WITHOUT TOUCHING PERSONALITY AND MEMORIES. Do you now love Ugly, trapped inside Person's body, life, personality, and memories of you; or do you still love Person, trapped inside Ugly's body, life, personality, and lack of memories of you?

Keep in mind that now Ugly loves you and Person does not, since they have switched brains.


2.

The apocalypse is coming. Assume you have met or known about 0.0001% of the people in the world. Choose only ONE of the following (in both cases, you survive):

a. Save only the people that you know, including yourself. Everyone else in the world dies.

b. Save only the people that you don't know, plus yourself. Everyone you know in the world dies.



3.
One fine day, an evil scientist captures you and creates an identical you (who will now be referred to as "Other"), having your same exact cells, brain, memories, and personality -- the only difference is consciousness: You observe the world from your body, and Other observes the world from Other's.

You have a spouse, two kids, a good job, and a good life. If you kill Other, no one will know, the scientist will not tell, and you will continue to live your life normally. If you don't, your spouse and kids will have to love two of you at once, since Other is exactly the same as you.

Would you kill Other?





Results:

If you don't love Person in 1a-1d, you are disgustingly cruel.
If you don't love Person in 1e and/or 1f, you are reasonably cold-hearted.
If you love Person in 1a-1f, you are reasonably altruistic.
If you answered "no" to number 3, you are admirably altruistic.
If you answered "b" for number 2, you are extremely altruistic.
If you love Person's consciousness trapped inside Ugly's brain in 1g, you are... fanatically altruistic.

I could've done some cheesy "points" system but I opted not do since I already spent way too much work on this dumb note.

The Semi-Conscious State

Sometimes, on the verge of waking up or falling asleep, one attains semi-consciousness. It is very difficult to sustain this; most of the time that I try to remain half-asleep, my brain activity becomes heightened, and I just end up waking up. However, I have on occasion successfully experimented with the semi-conscious state of mind (although these sessions have never lasted more than a few brief moments).

The next time you find yourself in between waking and dreaming (but closer to dreaming) try the following things:

Make your teeth hurt, without moving or touching them, by believing that they hurt. If done correctly, your teeth will hurt.

Play your favorite song or musical piece in your mind (or compose your own music on the fly). Imagine that the sounds are actually being played by real headphones around your head. If done successfully, you will be startled by the realism of your own mind's audio playback; you will be convinced that the music is issuing from headphones around your head.

Imagine the intellectual benefits we could have with the invention of a dream recorder: any original music conceived during a dream could then be remembered flawlessly! Speaking of which, I highly urge anyone reading this note to pursue the invention of the dream recorder. Then we could store them on DVD's and sell them. Or we could rent dreams at Blockbuster, in order to dream action or comedy or porn at night.

Morals Make us Fake

Would you sacrifice your dog to save the lives of 3 other dogs? No! If you were Spiderman and you could only choose one or the other, whom would you save: Girlfriend, or little kids? Girlfriend! Would you rather save your mom's life, or the lives of 5 starving children you have never heard of? YOUR MOM!!

I answered the above three questions for you assuming that you are human, and that you do not follow some higher, rationalized code of ethics. Morals are obtained from society and culture rather than our own instincts. Therefore, when you act upon morals you are not necessarily doing what you really want to do. The less morals you have, the more self-reliant and authentic you are. Don't be made fake by morals!!!! Consider the following:

A weak friend refuses to share his friend's secrets because of his strong sense of morality. A real friend refuses to share his friend's secrets because he cares about his friend.

A weak man stops himself from cheating on his wife with a really sexy woman, because he has morals. A faithful man stops himself from cheating on his wife because he loves her.