Life in America: How you walk

So a lot of things surprised me when I arrived here in the US, like people driving on the wrong side of the road (that's what they say about us too haha), or how the houses weren't fenced (I knew about this, just that seeing it is another feeling altogether). It was a little bit of a culture shock. But today, I'm going to talk about one of the most notable thing - at least to me - about the people in Madison when I arrived.

And that is the way people walk here.

No, it is not that they walk in a weird way or something. But they walk real fast!

Some of you might have had an opportunity to hang out with me and do a little bit of walking together. You may have noticed that I walk very fast most of the time. But here in Madison, the speed I walk in is just the average speed.

How I walk in the streets of Malaysia

I first noticed this when I was walking in the streets of Madison. Then all these people kept overtaking me from behind, which immediately caught my attention. Back in Malaysia, noone overtakes me while I walk, usually anyway. Which is kind of weird when we consider that the world's fastest walkers are Singaporeans, our neighbor in the south.

There are probably a couple of reasons why they walk so fast here though:

1.) Just because they can - Well, most people here are taller than me, and thus have longer legs. Makes perfect sense.

2.) People here are more time conscious - I do not mean to generalize, but overall time is seen as something valuable here. People tends to walk faster because it saves time.

There might be more reasons. But I will try figure that out on another day. Meanwhile, more homework!



Till next time, Cheers~


p.s. Like the post on facebook if you want to see more mini-posts about the life here. Greatly appreciated!

Born This Way?

Hi there. Apologies for long absence but let's get straight into the topic of the day.

Today we are going to talk about the brain. Human brains.

Have you ever wondered, if some people are really born geniuses while some are born dull? (Shall be very careful about using the seemingly politically incorrect term "stupid", though it means just the same.) I'm sure you had at least once during the course of your life, wonders how the hell did that smart kid in your class breezed through the exams without much effort, while you struggle to even stay awake to read the first page on your exam topic. "He's just born smart," you said to yourself, conceding defeat.

You may had even come across this situation where you are in a peer study group, a friend of yours asks you a question, and the next half an hour was spent just to explain to him why 5+3(2*3) is not the same with (5+3)(2*3), without getting a bit of it into your friend's head. You find an excuse to go to the toilet, leaving him to bug the other friends. "He's just born stupid," you think to yourself, thinking why did you even agreed to study together with him in he first place.

And you wonder if your friend's was eaten by zombie.

Let me tell you something. You may be right. Some people may be born smart, while some may born with less capable brain.

If this notion makes you uncomfortable, or strike you as a little (or very) offensive, ask yourself, "why not?" Some people are born tall, some are born short; some born with long limbs, some have short stubby fingers; some people are born with darker skins, some are born with lighter skins. It makes perfect sense then, that intelligence could vary between people too, however we chose to define intelligence. Some people could really be born geniuses, with above average mental capability.

Notice here I had been very careful with my words, the use of words "could" and "may" says that I do not have a definite answer for you on whether absolute intelligence varies between people. But I do believe it to be very plausible, if not a sure fact. Unpublished studies have been done on this topic many times before, often treading on ethical minefield and deemed offensive, or biased, or baseless, or racist, or... you get the idea. It is a very difficult study to conduct, given that we people usually do not take personal insults that well. Imagine if you are born short and was stuck with the nickname "shorty" throughout your high school, now imagine if you substitute the words "short" and "shorty" with "stupid"s, how does that feel? Well, sucks I know.

So, studies have been done. Mostly unpublished for the fear of public repercussion, can't really be blamed when most societies would value equality highly, except this country where we still have constitutional discrimination. (You know, sometimes I really wonder if we really think of each other as equals, given the way we treat each other. Hmm... )

I have no published studies to back me up. Which is fine, as I am going to appeal to logical reasoning based on our current model of the theory of evolution. This will get dizzy so hold on.


Suppose we are evolved from earlier hominids (great apes), we have to agree that our ancestors were not as intelligent as we are. How do we know? Well, their brain size are smaller than ours, and they had no evident technological advances. We must take note though that the brain size is not an absolute measurement of intelligence, as we can see from elephants having bigger brains than we do. But gives a fairly good comparative measurement for members of the same evolution lineage and we shall take it as that.

Premise one - Ancestors not as intelligent as modern humans.



Now how does evolution work? It may look complicated, but it is actually many theoretical models unified by one simple concept - survival of the fittest. I am going add a bit of explaining on that - each individual of a species are slightly different from each other because we possess different genes, such as everyone is this world is unique in the sense that no two people share the same characteristics, personality, and identity.

How do we get different genes? Well, sometimes genes mutate when they are passed down from parents to offspring, it may be harmful, it may have no effect, or it may be beneficial to the offspring. The individual who gets the beneficial modification to the genes has an advantage over the other individuals of the species, it then has more chance to mate and reproduce more offspring possessing the same beneficial genes. Over time, the individuals with the beneficial genes will out-compete the ones that do not, replacing the population. Thus the gene gets fixed in the species.

That being said, we have to understand that evolution can only happen if there are genetic variations for a trait. That means, in other for a body part to evolve, the population has to have different versions of the body part for nature to "choose". For example, skin color may evolve easily because we have different versions of gene s coding for skin color; while evolving a whole new limb may be near to impossible because the genes coding for the number of limbs are fixed.

With this in mind, we can establish another premise.

Premise two - evolution of a trait can only happen if there are genetic variations within the population.


Here comes the punchline. If we put the two premises together, we must conclude then that for our ancestors to evolve better brains, some of our ancestors had to be on the duller side, while some had to be on the brighter side. If everyone was born equally smart back then, nature couldn't have selected on smarter brains and brain power couldn't have made any improvement down many generations. But we are in fact smarter than our ancestors, therefore surely they are not all born with equal intelligence then?

It is possible that the variation persisted till today, although there is also a possibility that we have a reduced variation, if not fixed. It could be as varied as skin colors, or it could be as fixed as the number of fingers. Both are probable, but if daily observations were to go by it would probably lean more to the skin color side of the scale.

This does not mean however that we may still evolve into smarter human beings in the future even if there are variation in intelligence. Simply because our society has grown to the point that everyone, regardless of the level of intelligence, gets basic rights that ensure one's survival. People with less than average brain capability do not have selection pressure against them like our ancestors, they get to live and get married and have kids too. And the genes will swim around in the gene pool with other versions of the gene and codes for smarter brains. We may have already reached the point where our raw brain power will not grow on natural selection anymore.

===   ===   ===   ===

Although it is quite clear that I do believe that some people are more blessed than others, I do not advocate discrimination based on intelligence any more than I advocate racism. What am I trying to achieve by telling you this? Well, frankly speaking, I do not know. Maybe I think, it would be better if we can all accept the fact that not everyone is equally fast at learning and do not take it too personally. After all, if it's in the genes, we can't do much to change a thing about it. That doesn't mean though, that we should all stop our work on something altogether just because it takes a long time to accomplish it; we just have to try our best and if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't. Accept the fact that you are born this way.



Till, next time. Cheers~

Malaysian Rant

Disclaimer: Malaysian English, read at your own risk (of learning bad English).



Haiyo! One a fine day was today. If you confused about why did I started the sentence with such an exclamation, it is because the fine day was short-lived. There I was, waking up to a good day, sipping my coffee, just to be spoiled by what I saw on the newspaper today.

Walaueh, see already also want to vomit blood ah. But then hor, everyday also I read the newspaper one, why should this one be any different? Aiya, dunno leh. Maybe I had a little bit more of extra time today, so I read the news articles more carefully lor.

One article really got on my nerves la. Want to know what is it or not? Of course you do. Nah, here it is http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/8sitx/Article

Apparently an Indonesian maid working for one of our fellow Malaysian household graduated with a diploma at the Open University of Malaysia wor.

Wahsei, I thought. So geng (powerful) ah? No no, then I think again... Should be - Wah, that family so rich ah can afford to send their maid to university? Hire maid never mind, want to spend money to let her study some more (they said only pay half of the fee lah, but still a lot wei).

Ok lah. People want to do the maid a favor, I cannot say anything lor. Do good is do good mah, I'm feeling happy for the maid too. As for the family, thank you lor. But hor, I think the money can be better spent on something else lah. What is it? I don't know. Sendiri pikir lah (think yourself).

That is not the point lah. The point is, the news article hor - of all the lines they can start with - must start with "The Tan family of Damansara Utama is proof that the average Malaysian family cares for its domestic maids."

Immediately I thought, Walaoeh. One family can afford to send their maid to college, then it is a proof that everyone in Malaysia cares about their Indonesian maid is it? Like that if one politician is corrupt, then it is a proof that all politicians are corrupt too lor? Isn't it? Nah.

Remember last year we got into a row with Indonesia again about maid abuse? Then the fellers in Indonesia said they want to invade our country some more, for revenge wor they said. What does that proof? That all Malaysians torture their maid ah? Or that all Indonesians are crazy buggers that want to drench in our blood?

No ah? Then how the f**k can this one proof that all average Malaysian families care for their maid ah?

I really don't know lah. Sometimes I think these people write without using their brain one. But never mind lah, it's newspaper. Nobody believes what is on the newspapers anymore lah in Malaysia. Except for some people that still believe that Utusan Malaysia is holier than Al Qur'an lah.




Anyway, let's talk about something else. Last week, the hacker group Anonymous hacked into our government websites. About 100+ websites got attacked and was brought down.

Aiyo. Really fail lah. These people already declared that they will attack a few weeks earlier. Announced the date and time some more. And then this Minister of Ancient Information Technology berlagak (boast) want to say," We are ready".

Then what happened? We got hacked lah, that's what. Got pwned like Mike Tyson giving a little kid a left hook for a knockout punch.

Walaoeh. How can? Government websites wor, not got a lot of people like those in Pentagon one working for government one meh? How come can get hacked by these people? Cannot lah like that. If government also can get hacked, then we normal rakyat (people) how? Aiya. Really ah, depend on this ancient dinosaur as a minister, might as well ask your dog to fend off these hackers lah.

Then ah. All these for what? All because our government blocked some downloading websites lor. Say want to protect local entertainment industry wor. Walaoeh. What local entertainment industry? Some people want to download porn cannot is it? Malaysia got make one is it? (Got lah, if you find hard enough)

Say want to protect local entertainment industry. Wah, what do you think har? Now must force us to buy these lousy music is it? Nah, give us download also donwan lah. You musicians in Malaysia, think what har? Haven't start to make good music you want us to buy and listen ah? Mimpi lah (dream on). What if I bought your album and it sucks har? Maybe if you all start to make some good music, we might consider spending our hard-earned money on your decent songs lah. Our money not easy come one you know, want us to simply invest on you ah?

What? No money, can't produce good music? Walao. What you think, the whole world charity ah? You want us to give you money first, then only you make good music ah? If like that, everyone also become a millionaire already lor. This business plan, is brilliant lah, only we everyone is gullible enough to part with their money lah. I also can say, if everyone give me some money, then I can start a business and become a billionaire, then repay everyone who lent money to me lor. How is that? You want to invest in me or not?

Walaoeh. Really beh tahan (cannot stand) lah Malaysia. But then hor, it's the only country I know. Must sabar... sabar... Haiyo. Ok lah my rant ends here. Soli ah if my English polluted your brain. Promise next post I will revert to my own writing style (if it's not another Malaysian rant).



Till next time, cheers~

Rapture!

I would hate to be this guy on May 22.

Nope. Not the Bioshock "Rapture".

If you have been following the international news or, particularly, the news in the US. You would have heard of this news. If you had not, I would suggest that you stop reading and google something along the line of "May 21 Rapture", read any articles by any news media. That would help you understand what's going on.

So a church in the US has been telling everybody that the world is coming to an end on the 22nd of May, this year. The church, led by an old man named Harold Camping (I should add that he is also a multi-millionaire and the host of the most subscribed Christian radiostation in the US), spent enormous amount of money setting up billboards all over (I do not know how far wide are the billboards, but I presume quite a large area across the US). Here are a few examples of the billboards. I have taken the liberty of sharing them with you. ; )

That is right guys. Cry, cry... Be very afraid. Because Bible GUARANTEES it!

Yup, don't want to miss a barbecue session with Jesus.

And all you unbelievers will be tortured until the 21st of October, then the world will end, and you then will get more torture in Hell. 

Here we go "again". Just like many other false prophecies.

Yes, it is really that insane. But what's more insane is that these people genuinely believe in it! They wear sandwich boards in cities, giving fliers, grabbing anyone off the street and yelling at them. If you didn't know, you would have thought that it was a massive publicity campaign for some cheesy product.

That doesn't surprise me though. What surprises me is the level of hypocrisy of these "believers". They preach that the believers will ascend to Heaven comes 21st of May, but they do not live as if they are really going to leave this world.

If you are going to leave this life, why bother saving your money? Why bother keeping all your possessions? Walk what you preach, give it to the poor, you do not need those in heaven anyway (and the poor deserves better).

Still keeping? I don't know what do you call it if not being a hypocrite. Seriously.



As for Harold Camping who made the prediction. Well, he made a prediction a decade earlier, saying that the world is going to end in 1994. Nothing happened.

Personally, I would hate to be this guy on the 22nd of May, when everything is still fine, and Jesus didn't come, and none of these "believers" left for Heaven. But that's just me. Some people love attention so much they believe that bad publicity is still publicity. Don't be surprised if he end up trying to bid for US presidency after this. (Another Christian evangelist, Pat Robertson, made a prediction that the world is going to end in 1982, nothing happened of course. But Pat Robertson went on to run for presidency in 1988.)

Oh well. I am just glad that Christianity in Malaysia hasn't stooped that low yet. But given enough time and with the growing fundamentalism movement, I am sure one of these days something like this may spread to and surface in Malaysia - Land of Anything Also Can. That is when I will totally - and finally - give up hope for this country.

Anyway. Happy Rapture everyone. Hope I will see you around when tomorrow comes.



Till next time, cheers~


p.s. Would someone ask Kanye West to interrupt the Rapture, please?

Don't Understand People Lah...

Probably one of the biggest news in a while, that Osama bin Laden is dead.

I was keeping tab on twitter even before Obama decided to announce the news the other day. Then one of the tweets from CNN news announced that Obama is going on air for a special address to the nation. I remember one tweet saying that Obama decided to go on air at that time to draw peoples' attention from Donald Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice", which was going to be aired at the same time.

For those who didn't know, Obama and Trump got into a little 'feud' about the president's country of birth. Thus the joke tweet.

Anyway, the rest is exactly what you heard from the news. The international news channels rating soared, saturated with all sorts of news and interviews - how it happened, who was involved, did Pakistan know, effects on Middle-East politics, effects on al-Qaeda, etc., even though some people had no business to be there (instant fame on CNN wor, who wouldn't accept?).

There are groups of people who remained skeptical of the news, though. And they believe the US fabricated the whole spectacle, and - to a certain extent - staged the conspiracy from the start of 9/11. What did the US do to deserve such a claim?

  I cry foul as I like. ok?

Um, I don't know what I should make of this. I have in mind to blog about this a long time ago, but was unable due to time constraints. But one issue bothers me - why did they think so?

I think crying foul and saying that the US is conspiring against us is just plain absurd. People have been asking for the US to present the evidence that bin Laden is dead, or else it's a conspiracy. One thing I would ask these people though, where is the proof of conspiracy?

Do not use creative imaginations to link unrelated facts together that do not even pass Ockham's razor, and present it as a fact, claiming that the US is politically motivated to do so. The complex conspiracy theory fails, because in order to explain the whole situation, more baseless theories have to be made to support it. That doesn't work due to the nature of its complexity, and when both explanations are equally viable, the simpler prevails. Simple. Case closed. (I am not a big fan of US, I'm not some unpatriotic "char-siew" who will - on the first chance he/she gets - grab a green card and show Malaysia his/her ass. I'm defending because I think it's unfair and unjustified.)

I would want to return on a later time to lay out all the 9/11-related conspiracies and debunk them one at a time. I really don't understand people who thinks that the US has all the time in the world to stage this bloody show just to spend trillions of dollars into the military to wage a war against no-one (and get the oil which is then used to earn money which is then spent into the military which is used to get the oil in the first place). Come on, the whole plan is just too smart and complicated for Bush to execute (except the military spending - oil money cycle, and the after-effects on the American economy, now that's dumb and typical of him).

Meanwhile, I would like to end with this photo. Bin Laden's photos were not released yet. Look lah. Ok? Good night.

Osama's Las Vegas photo, he got drunk that's all.

Till next time, Cheers.

Of Facebook, Birthday wishes, and April Fool's Day

You just got punk'd

And so yesterday was April Fool's Day. I must admit I had never paid any particular attention to this day, nor do I treat it any different. But this year it's a little bit different, with the rise of Facebook usage among the netizens, I thought it would be interesting to do an experiment, particularly on the birthday notification function of Facebook.

I remember a few months ago me and a whole group of people from TEDxYouthKL were having a lunch celebration at TGI Fridays at the Gardens. So one of us came out with this idea of setting our birthday to the 1st if April this year, just for the "lulz". We wanted to see how many birthday wishes we could get.

And so we did, the few of us, setting our birthday to the 1st of April, some even set it a few days before (I did) just for it to seem more real.



The morning of the 1st, I logged in to find a whole wall of birthday wishes. To my surprise, I found out that there were at least 20 of my friends who shared the same "birthday" with me. I remember thinking - while still about 10am in the morning, with more than 40+ wishes - that this would be a funny day.

Funny day indeed it was. By the afternoon, I already have more than a hundred wishes. And I was laughing, amused by how many people were wishing me without knowing that it wasn't really my birthday, even if (if they took the effort to scroll down just a little to see) some of my friends were trolling on my way saying it's not my real birthday.

But then I grew a bit worried (or rather, disturbed), not because I was afraid that there are people who would take the joke too seriously (there were, as a matter of fact); it was because I felt like something is wrong with this.

Who you gonna call?

What exactly was wrong? Hmm....

As of today, I have a total of 190 birthday wishes on my Facebook wall. How did it get to 190? That is a lot of people!

And how many birthday wishes did I get from my friends, face-to-face? None. That's it. NONE. So what does this tell us?



I think this phenomenon speaks volume about how human interactions had changed over the last few years. It seems like people are relying too much on Facebook (I am guilty of this as well), which cannot be blamed when it does really brought much convenience to the way we connect with each other.

But to further extend the "abuse" to wishing other people "happy birthday"? I think that is just a tad too much. Whatever happened to the sincere and personalized wishes, when you really mean it when you wish your friends a happy birthday? But no, some people have this daily routine of looking up the list of people on the birthday notification, copy and paste "Happy Birthday ^^" on each of their wall, as if they meant it, as if they are obliged to do it.

Of course, not all people does that. I don't. And for some people, Facebook wishes may be the only viable choice (oversea, expensive call rate).

Maybe they are just being polite wishing everyone, but to be honest, some people may find it a bit annoying. I mean, do you really think they give a care if you sent wish or not?

That's something to think about.

Oh, and to those people who took the joke seriously. Come on man, you need a life. Like seriously. Getting upset over a Facebook prank is just too... Um... lulz... idk... Oh well... Not that I am bothered.



I guess that's all for today.

Oh, and if you are interested to know when is my real birthday (I'm being a bit narcissist here, of course you are not, why would you want to know?), just come to be and ask me personally ok? I don't care if you think I am a privacy freak, or hypocrite, or whatever. For me it's a sign of real friendship (knowing my birthday), that you really care enough to want to know. Putting it up on Facebook to let everyone know is just asking for unwanted attention on your birthday, unless you really like attention, that's another matter altogether.

Don't mind me. This is Brain Stew.

Till next time, cheers~

A Bug's Guide to Save the World: Eat me!

"You? Saving the world? Nah..."

So, the other day I saw this TED talk, it was about eating insects and how it (sort of) tackles the global issues that we are facing today. I thought it should be an interesting topic to write on (hence this post). However, at some point over the course of this post, I may strike you as a hypocrite for advocating something I do not have the slightest intention of practicing (yet. YET!). That (me being a hypocrite) should not be of your concern, what is though, is that you should read with an open mind and decide for yourself. :)



Alrighty dookie. Let's start with some facts about these insects.


fact number ONE: There are more than 6 million species of insects in the world!

"Vegeta, what does the scouter says about their power level?"

Yes, one conservative estimation is that there are between 6 million to 10 million species of insects in the world! To put that in a another perspective, we have only about 5,500 species of mammals on earth, and 6 million species is about 80% of the world's animal species. Talk about variety.

Gotta Eat 'Em All!

And assuming the average life span of a human is about 78 years (a very generous number, given that the world average is about 70), if we were to eat one different species of insect everyday of our life from the day we were born, we will need at least 35 lives to taste every single species of insects on earth!



fact number TWO: Insects are more massive than humans.

What? No way, right? We all know humans are bigger than insects. But wait... What I mean by massive is - to possess more mass.

Awh... Life isn't always fair, I know.

For every human, there is another 200 to 2,000 kilograms of insects. They have more dry mass compared to us! :O  Makes us wonder if this is a planet of the humans or the planet of the insects eh?


fact number THREE: Insects are the very foundation of an ecosystem. (Yeah yeah okay, plants are too)

One less topic to study in your biology class.

The fact of the matter is, if all the insects disappeared today, withing a few decades if not a few years, all animals (and possibly most of the plants) will go extinct. The ecosystems that are so highly dependent on insects for food source, pollination, decomposition, will be thrown into a mess so big that the other organisms will not have sufficient time to adapt and evolve to fill in the niches. However, if humans were to go extinct, the only animals that will suffer (ever so slightly) are the domesticated farm animals, but do not worry, domesticated animals can within their lifetime turn from docile pets into wild animals, becoming what they were like before humans came and played dress-em-up with them like little barbie dolls, they will find their way back to a self-sustaining population.

So next time you think of killing those pesky flies and mosquitoes, spare a thought for these little creatures, but kill them anyway.


fact number FOUR: More than 1,000 species of insects are being eaten worldwide.

Critter platter anyone?

And people don't just eat it as a snack or a delicacy, some population in the world eats insect as a legitimate food source. In other words, insects are their proper meal.

It's like buying meat, only, they come in smaller portions.

Like there is a market (in an economic sense) for meats and vegetables respectively, there are also markets for insects. People buy and sell insects like we buy and sell our food. There are restaurants and stalls that offer you a variety of insects that you can choose to eat. Heck there are even candies that are made of insects. Gross? Not to them apparently.

One wormipop, coming through

fact number FIVE: You have been eating insects all the while!

Don't throw up. Believe it or not, even in developed countries, people eat at least 500 grams of insects or insect-derived products per YEAR. That means, if you are at about my age (almost 19), you would have eaten about 10 kilos of bugs, holy mama! You know how much is 10 kilograms? That is about 3 million ants! Or 100 goliath bettle, the heaviest insect in the world. Honestly, neither sounds tasty at all.

One nasty motherfucker to swallow.

How do you come to ingest 500 grams of insects you ask? Well, for one, you eat them accidentally sometimes, partially or whole. Like ants in your water which sometimes are too small to be noticed, or tiny flies sticking to your favorite candy. You don't notice, because they don't taste like much, probably because they were too small to trigger enough of your taste buds to recognize it as a distinct flavor.

A large portion of them come from your processed foods. Almost all foods are processed in some ways, usually the aim is to allow the food to last longer without spoiling. But know this, not all processing methods are flawless. There are times when the food are being processed from the raw materials, such as crops, the insects that lives in or just happen to be passing by the food are not removed thoroughly.

Now it comes with REAL bugs!

And that's okay as long as they meet the requirements of the food safety standards; for example a 250ml canned fruit juice meets the safety requirements as long as it contains less than 5 fruit fly eggs AND 2 larvae. Enjoy slurping your slurpy next time. :)

Also known as surimi sticks

Crab sticks, I'm sure everyone of us had eaten this before. Perhaps one of our favorite imitation food, crab sticks are actually, well, not made of crabs but fish meats. But fish meat is white, it's not red. Where does the red in crab sticks come from?

Well, it comes from a red color dye called cochineal, which is used widely as red food coloring. It is also used to dye fabrics. And where does cochineal come from? *Drum rolls*...

The answer is... Cochineal!

Hi, here's my name card. *Squirts red juice on people*

Yes, it actually comes from the beetle of the same name. And it is estimated that around 160 tonnes of these stuffs are produced each year. Imagine how much beetle juice we are drinking.

Cochineal cocktail anyone?

The last fact might gave you a little bit of a scare. But speaking of which, it is a nice bridge to the next section of this post --->

Why should we eat insects?

Big question. Why should we eat them? Aren't we doing fine with chickens and beef and pork?

Well, the most important argument is that, it helps to reduce, if not solve, a few of the global issues that humanity are facing, namely - world hunger and feeding a growing population, and environment (sort of, but we'll see).

Super Bug here to save the day!

Let's start with famine - the eternal state of hunger.

How do eating insects help solve world hunger. Well, it doesn't solve world hunger directly, but think about this for a second, if we are to incorporate insects into our daily meal, then we will certainly have enough food for everyone in the world (well actually we do have enough food for everyone in the world, but let's just for the sake of argument say that we don't, which reflects the reality).

Remember, insects are abundant. They are everywhere. People don't have to import insects from other countries like we do with other meat products (i.e. beef from New Zealand), they just have to look at their backyard and search for these critters to feast on.

It is low cost, almost zero if we do insect foraging ourselves. It's everywhere, though sometimes you'll have to know where to look for it.

And in terms of food value it is comparable to the meat that we consume if compared them pound by pound. Insects have nutritional qualities on par with meat!

While we are at it, let us consider this. By the year 2050, we are going to have a world population of 9 billion! Can you imagine feeding 9 billion people, when we can't even feed 6.5 billion? Where are the extra food going to come from?

We eat to evolve, then we evolve to eat.

That is a 30% increase in population; according to some estimation we are going to need a 70% increase in food production just to meet the food demand, not a 30% equivalent. Why? Because as population grows, so do the number of the wealthy, and rich people eat considerably more than what their body need, hence more food per person.

About 70% of our agricultural lands are dedicated to rear livestocks. In other words, only about 30% of agricultural lands are really used for agriculture. So if we were to have an increase in population, and more and more people are eating more and more meat, how are we going to find all the lands to produce it? Deforestation? I don't know, but it sure spells disaster for the environment.

Eat, Fart, Pollute, Be Eaten. Repeat cycle.

Speaking of the environment, remember the methane gas that cows produce when they excrete their wastes? Those are known to be greenhouse gases (GHG) and contribute to global warming, and they are 20 times more potent as GHG than carbon dioxides!

So if we were to produce more beef, doesn't that means more GHGs? Yes, in a way, and we will need a hell lot more resources to feed the cows.

Feeding a cow is an expensive business, for every 10kg of feed you feed a cow, 9kg of those will come out at the rear end as crap manure. So, in a sense, cow is 10% food and 90% shit.

But insects however, are much more efficient at eating. For every 10kg of insect feed, only 1kg will be excreted, and the other 9kg is absorbed.

So with a 10kg of input, which one would you prefer? A 1kg return? Or a 9kg return? There's no need an economics major to answer the question.

If we eat insects, we can solve almost all of the problems listed above.

Heck they can even build their own apartments.

Firstly, insects do not require that much space to live. And unlike conventional livestocks, they can occupy a 3D space instead of a 2D space - They can climb vertical walls, stand upside-down, fly, stack on top of each other - which means more production with less space.

And it come with individual rooms.

Upkeep resources are significantly lower. You do not bathe the insects, you do not feed them a lot of food. They are easy to rear, and they reproduce ridiculously fast. So, less money, more food, everyone's a happy fat man (or woman).

There will also be less greenhouse gases, however I'm not sure if they produce any at all (they breath out carbon dioxides though). Change beef production to insect production, no more methane farts, voila~



It is not the matter of "should we eat insects?", it is the matter of "when?". Because frankly speaking, I cannot think of any other way we can meet the food demand of this growing human population. Unless we all become vegetarian, otherwise the next best way is to explore insects as a main food source.

I am not saying that we should all start devouring all insects that we can get our hands on though, don't do that, uncooked insects are potentially harmful. But I'm talking about having an industry, like the poultry industry or agriculture industry or things like that.

But despite all these, again, you can call me a hypocrite, but I'm definitely not changing my diet to insect-based any time soon. XD



Oh by the way, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone.

Hope you all enjoyed this edition of brain stew.

Till next time, cheers~

Leaky Wiki

Hey guys, I'm doing a short write-up about the recent "big news" surrounding the international scene - WikiLeaks. Flip any newspapers for the past week or two, you will see at least a column dedicated to the development of the event.

Now if you haven't been reading the news and don't know what I'm talking about, it's okay, I don't know what am I talking about either. LOL. Ahem, okay, let's move on.

So the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was arrested and then released on bail just a few days ago.

Wanted: Raped Sweet Swedes 

He is now currently charged with a sex offense by the Swedish judiciary, and many governments, especially the States, are vying to get hold of him so that he can be tried and be put away once and for all for leaking thousands of secret documents.

If I may comment on this issue, I must say, I really applaud his courage for standing out in the face of the controversy. One may argue that it had done much good to the world, that people and nations will benefit from the information transparency. There are people who hail him as a hero, leading the revolution against the oppressive governments (Huah, just like the movie V for Vendetta).

But as much as I want to give him ALL the credit people think he deserves, I have to point out that this is not his victory; it is the victory of the people and the information technology.

WikiLeaks (or a common misconception, Julian Assange himself) will not be where it is right now had not the people submitting the documents. Where else did you think the WikiLeaks team get their materials for publication?

Also, another thing that WikiLeaks couldn't have triumphed without - the information technology itself. The global communications network has grown to the point where information can easily travel half a globe away with just a few clicks of a button. Certainly you couldn't imagine doing that with telegrams or even telephones can you? And, if it wasn't for the technology, he couldn't have garnered massive support from people around the world (imagine if Jesus had the internet and facebook at his time).

So before we all jump to label him as a (and the only) freedom fighter for information libertarianism, think about what I said. He is not the sole hinge in overthrowing information secrecy of the governments, he is just a lightning rod, taking the hits for the cause. However, again, I do have to say I applaud him for his courage even though it means putting his life on the line.



Moving on, I do have to criticize WikiLeaks on their recent leak of US diplomatic cables. The leak of the diplomatic cables (the communication between the US government and US embassies in other countries, sometimes including criticisms of the host countries of the embassies) not only does no good to the international community at large, it stirs up tension between the US and the other countries, which was uncalled for and unnecessary. To put it in a perspective that is more relatable, it's like someone recording the conversation between our PM and DPM saying that Chinese and Indians are pendatang and releasing it to everyone in Malaysia intentionally, even though that does nothing but to spread animosity.

The purpose of diplomacy is to create good relations between countries. Regardless of what the countries think of each other, a peaceful relationship will always benefit both parties more than a hostile one - less military spendings, more economic growth. So for once, I must disagree with WikiLeaks for leaking the diplomatic cables, they should have known better than to create more bickering between nations in the already-nearing-World-War-3-world (oh yeah, read about North and South Korea, I'm afraid they are near boiling points. If they go to war, I'm sure China and US will get involved too. :S ).



Alright. That's all for today, time for me to go stoning.



Till next time, cheers.

Of Suicide and (stupid) Peoples

I believe you would had seen in the news a couple of days ago that a guy, 22 years of age, committed suicide because of a failure in a relationship. He jumped off a 14-story building and died due to excessive loss of blood in the next morning. But before he died, he posted a suicide note on his facebook page, and even did a countdown to the time of his suicide.

Well at first his friends and family didn't know what he was up to, except that it was kind of freaking her sister out (try googling, you can probably find the facebook comments exchange between him and his sister). In his text replies in facebook at that time he did sound normal though, or rather, look normal (can't hear written words right?), like most of us would - typing using rojak words, with mandatory smileys at the end of each sentence. No one suspected anything at all, until it happened.

Now, when I heard of the news. I was extremely disturbed; there are a few reasons why and I shall talk about them one by one.

Killing himself because of a broken heart

The only worse way to die is to break your heart, literally.

People does a lot of things to kill themselves everyday, intentionally or otherwise. Suicide, of course, is a way of dying where people consciously choose to end their own lives.

There are a number of good reasons why a person would want to kill him or herself, such as in the case of the kamikaze pilots of Japan, where they fly their fighter airplanes straight into enemy targets, thus ensuring maximum control in hitting the target. The downside was, obviously, the pilot has to die in the collision, but the soldiers say it's a way to show love and patriotism for the country, to die for the country is of the greatest honor. The further justification is that because it is tactically superior (provided you have enough crazy pilots and airplanes of course).

But killing himself because his ex-girlfriend didn't want to accept him again, is that justifiable? How can a person, really, want to die because of broken heart, I do not know.

If he were to die protecting his ex-girlfriend from something, yes, that would be really admirable, in fact I would applaud him for his brave sacrifice. But he did not, he chose to end his own life, for whatever reasons clearly unknown and instead of people benefiting from the situation, it made things worse. Like, 12984798179789758917592858 times worse, for his family, friends, and not to mention, the person who will be feeling the guilt the most - his ex-girlfriend.

What was he trying to do really?

Life is cheap like this

It's okay, I'm free anyway

That was the message he gave (not the sole message however), that life is so cheap, that when a person feels like he don't want to live anymore, he or she can just end his or her life, without really considering the consequences.

And to die for a petty reason such as a failed relationship, it further amplifies the message. 

Many kids in the poorer areas of the world - Africa, Latin America, South Asia, they were born into families that cannot support them in terms of the most basic needs. Everyday life is a struggle for them, and having just clean water and food, to them, is the equivalent of us staying in a luxury 5-star resort for a weekend. A lot of them do not make it to adulthood, and those who do face constant threat of epidemic diseases, with not chance of getting medical treatment. They really want to live, but alas, the world is unfair sometimes, they were just unfortunate to be born in the situation they are in, and dying early is a fated affair, them having almost no control over it.

But this person, born in a beautiful country of Malaysia, with no immediate natural or economical crisis, into a decent family, having more than human basic needs, took everything for granted and chose, I repeat, consciously chose to end his own life, when at the same time the unfortunates all around the world are trying to live, choosing to live, despite facing the prospect of dying in a near future. 

Do you not see the problem with his thinking? 

And if you ask me, this is the reason I will not give him the respect due, because he does not value his own life, which could not had happened had the paths of his parents did not entwine and they did not get married, or had they decided to have sex copulate on another day instead of the day where the embryo destined to mature into him were formed.

Instant celebrity status

It's like Hollywood, except that I'm in heaven

I doubt if this is what he had in mind when he committed suicide (who can be sure, though?), but take a search in facebook, type in his name and see what comes out.

Yes, you are right, fan pages. No, not singular, but the plural "fan pages". And if that does not disturb you, take a look at the number of subscribers of the pages, it goes well over 40 thousand for the more popular ones. But even the lesser ones had amounted thousands of not tens of thousands of facebook "likers".

What is wrong with these people really? What are they trying to do, making a fan page?

Are they trying to glorify this death? Worshiping him as a celebrity? Sorry if this sounds wrong, but I can't think of any other reason a sane person would create or like these pages. You can argue that the pages are used for  commemoration purposes, but doesn't that mean that his death has more value, and therefore, deserves to be noticed by more people?

If anything at all, these pages are telling people that posting suicide notes on facebook and committing suicide is "cool", and can have bad influences on people, especially the younger people (and by young I mean those teenagers less than 18 years of age) who can sometimes be immature enough to follow bad trends.

And as for the people who subscribed to these pages, what are you doing? Are you promoting the same values that these pages are trying to instill? Stop liking the pages. Stop posting R.I.P. notes there. It's none of your fucking business he died. If you are just doing that with good intentions, try justifying why didn't you do the same for the gazillions of people who died for a better reason or a better cause.

There are people who deserve those wishes more than this lad here, many more who were forgotten but contributed to the society more. These are the ones that you should be wishing, not him, not when all he cares about is himself. Of selflessness and selfishness, are we really trying to tell people that the latter deserves more recognition?

p.s. If there's a fan page related to this incident that you should like at all, it is this.



Sigh, I think I should stop here. There are much more things I wanted to say about this incident, but I think I should just keep it to myself. But really, people, be more mature okay? It's okay to be kids sometimes, but not when it shows your infinite stupidity.



That is all for today. For my next post, I think I shall write about something in response to my friend's facebook posts about some conspiracies and new world order. Hopefully I can prepare my materials in time, and have it posted up in a couple of days.

Till next time, cheers.