Amazing what a nail-clipper can do. i don't think i'll have to wear sandals anymore, and PE probably won't be an issue either. haha, sorry for being melodramatic guys :P still, even though it doesn't hurt much anymore, it looks like another few months before it grows back to a "normal" length i.e. stops looking weird. guess i'll be wearing shoes more often now.
being a rather visual learner personally, i can usually grasp concepts by reading through notes. of course lectures and tutorials help a great deal, but given enough time on my own with the proper reading material (and that could be a lot of time), i think i can probably get most of it eventually. as a result of this, i've always resented doing long tutorials, such as virtually all econs and GP homework, with the thought that i already know all of this somewhere in the recesses of my mind, and that having to physically write it out is just a waste of time and wrist strength. luckily, i grew out of that phase: knowing is not the same as doing. you can have encyclopedia britannica memorised in your mind, but unless you know what and when to draw upon then it's all useless trivia. in this world, intellectual capacity is measured not solely by breadth and depth of knowledge, but also the efficiency with which it can be applied, because the world isn't a timeless intellectual playground to stroll through and await enlightenment, but one where deadlines and due dates stare you down everywhere you go. so what if you can solve the problem in a day? the world demands someone who can solve it in an hour, and as long as people like that do exist, you will be totally ignored if you cannot keep up. for once, i find myself supporting the singapore education system for drilling problem-solving techniques.
a sudden random thought popped into my head about the advancement of technology. i just realised a bit of a similarity between the process of technological development and that of evolution. just like in natural selection, new developments occasionally enter the environment, and only remain if they manage to thrive in it. in the process of converting from one dominant technology to another, there will be much inconvenience for all parties (think of the Blu-Ray VS HD-DVD war just a few years back), just like how a new adaptation is usually a liability before it becomes an asset. but that is where the similarities end. unlike evolution, new developments are the result of deliberate planning and not random mutations, resulting in much faster developments. and unlike in nature, evolutionary stragglers in the world of technology are quickly (perhaps mercilessly?) removed from existence; when was the last time you saw a floppy disc? so if you compare human evolution to advancements in robotics and AI, what does this mean for the technological singularity, that dreaded point in the future where machines become advanced enough to develop better versions of themselves, leaving us humans obsolete? could robotics, in fact, be the next step in evolution? could this step be closer than we thought? i'll end off by explaining a bit about Moore's Law, which (in its simplified version) predicts that technology develops at an exponential rate. so far, not only has technology indeed been improving exponentially, but at times it has even surpassed Moore's predictions. if you think that the technological singularity is far off, think again.
in case you haven't noticed, the music player has been invaded by songs from Nightmare! :D my favourites from the album: Save Me, God Hates Us, Lost It All, Welcome To The Family, Fiction, So Far Away, Buried Alive, Nightmare (haha, that's more than half the album).
