life sucks eh

On an unrelated note: I like it when I use Tripview and I just wait at a platform while the rest of the passengers go look at a timetable. And when they come back I'm like "What, didn't you know that?" =P

Went for a massive city trip today and I am tired. Spotted like 4 or 5 Starbucks in the city today.
Also the Centre Point Tower Westfield logo is ugly as fuck. One of Sydney's icons sold out =(
Also walked around the Opera House and couldn't tell what was the main entrance. Didn't find impressive double doors or anything =P. But there were some smaller door objects which could've been what I was looking for.

And I cbf posting anymore because it doesn't really interest anyone if I post about my day.


This was meant to be posted yesterday but I evidently didn't click publish. So here we are =P

brownie points for participating

On Annual, discovered Tim Minchin, the person behind Prejudice/Taboo/Ginger Song, whatever you will call it.

Youtubed him at home and found some funny shit:


On human logic - the ending is hilarious =P. This guy attracts an atheist audience due to the nature of his material. So don't watch if you are gonna watch it and then complain about it. Otherwise, go ahead :L


And this one is a 3 minute song with terrible double entendres. Clever!

You probably didn't watch those so have something with some relevance to you:
If you have an iDevice and an iTunes account and have Game Centre - add me "jwhero". I always forget to ask people and the inbuilt friend finder pretty much sucks.
If you have an unobvious screen name please tell me who you are on MSN or something :L

monster survey

I'd saved up this survey for a bajillion years. The answers were outdated so I re-did it. Please note I may have left some outdated answers - if they don't make sense, please tell me =)

For your entertainment, have a pictionary.

3 words, spaces, no punctuation (this has different forms of spelling the same thing, like "meat pie" and "meatpie", so once you've got it, try a couple of alternate forms if your first try doesn't work :L)

Clue 1
This is a themed pictionary!
Clue 2
It's a pun.
Clue 3
Think about pixels.

belonging creative

Here is a story that I wrote randomly through SMS. We were on the topic of how annoying writing a creative is, and how much cooler it would be if we could just write a children's story.
So here is what I came up with, on a whim:

"Ouch!" cried the matchstick. "Ouch, ouch, ouch!"
His head bumped against the footpath, and suddenly - WHOOSH! - he was on fire.
What should matchstick do?
He saw a pile of gunpowder - no, that won't do!
He saw a pool of petrol - no, that won't do!
He saw a puddle on the ground - yes, that would do!
He stuck his head into the puddle and sighed. Tssssss - He was not on fire anymore!

But he changed from GINGER to NIGGER (ANAGRAM'D!)

Then my final comment - I am on freaking fire.


Analysis:
The initial cry of "Ouch" establishes a possible conflict. Indeed, he is then soon faced with the choice of how to put out the fire that is his head.
His incongruity in his environment is highlighted through the objects that are present - a matchstick does not belong where there is lots of gunpowder or petrol lying around.
The juxtaposition of racial identities in GINGER to NIGGER highlights how the colour of his head affects his sense of identity. Initially he considered himself a redhead, but after ignition, he considers himself a blackhead(?). This idea of ginger being an anagram of nigger was inspired by Tim Minchin :L

annual 2011

Here are memories from Annual 2011
There is profuse swearing because that is how it happened. So if you are liable to offence then please save yourself while you still have sanity.

~~~
Victor: What's the weather like for the trek?
Brian: I don't know, leave me alone!
Samuel: Hey what are you watching?
Brian: I'm reading a fucking blog post, get the fuck out!
~~~
(Freya blatantly eavesdropping on our convo from the seat behind)
(Pretending we weren't aware of her intrusion)
Jeff: Damn, I hope Freya's not listening to our conversation! She might get offended by what we're saying!
Brian: Yeah, it's pretty rude if she finds out that we FUCKING HATE HER
(I can't remember if Freya chimed out at this point)
~~~
Swearing battles
I have an audio file of our swearing battle (with Johnny just listening awkwardly, at like 11 at night)
But a golden call by Brian
Jeff: Did you just fucking fart?
Brian: No, fuck you!
Jeff: It looks like your mouth makes the same noises as your fucking asshole
Brian: When your shits take a shit, that sounds like what comes out of your fucking mouth.
Jeff: So like, no noise, you fuck?
...
Brian: I fucking wish.
Jeff: Good game, dear gentleman. I concede defeat.
~~~
In barracks phase we met Sammy Lucky - the orphan boy who had no clothes and had to wear Tree's clothes.
I have the audio file on my phone, but I will transcribe it here.
Jeff: Right, tell us the story of the immigrant orphan child.
Tree: What we have here is a boy named Sammy Lucky, who is an immigrant orphan from Vietnam, here to experience the Australian culture of bushwalking.
Jeff: So how did he come about to be... an orphan?
Tree: His parents died in a manufacturing accident when they worked at the braces factory. This is why [Sammy] has braces.
Jeff (To Sammy): So you have free braces for life. What do you think about this?
Samuel Sammy Lucky (idiot accent): Extremely good, man!
Jeff: How do you like your cupcake?
Sammmy Lucky: First time taste the sugar(?) in two year, bro!
Jeff: Do you need vegetables in your life?
Sammy Lucky: No need - what is vegetable?
Jeff: What does your diet consist of?
Sammy Lucky: Meat only. Very good.
Tree: This boy has not tasted fresh water in the last twenty years. He's actually 26. While he may look like he's going through puberty, due to the lack of food in his poor impoverished state, he has not grown.
Jeff: Excellent, thankyou very much for this story of Sammy Lucky.
~~~
Sammy Lucky's first first world problem: I don't think I can finish my hundreds and thousands cupcake - hate life.
(Shit, too much food! Life is the shits)
~~~
ABC Triangle Game. Let's just leave it at that.
~~~
This next conversation - it was between me and Brian. However, I can't remember who said what, so I'll just use 1 and 2
1: I should leave my phone in my sleeping bad so it doesn't fall off my second bunk
2: Next to your penis.
1: Yes, so when I get a text I am happy in two ways
2: Killing two birds with one stone.
1: How bout I kill your two stone with one bird?! *falcon punch*
~~~
The story of the bottle from the pits of hell.
We wrote a complete horror story in Amanda's memory book thing. But the synopsis goes as such.
Brian and Tree were playing with a 2L water bottle. They opened the lid and instead of water *dun dun dun* it was SAND OF PURE EVIL.
Jeff, being a reckless fool, bent down and touched the sand. In an instant, he was gone!
The 2L bottle suddenly gained weight, as if it were filled again. Brian and Tree looked inside the bottle, and JEFF'S EYE WAS STARING BACK.
The sand was not sand. IT WAS DECOMPOSED HUMAN REMAINS OMFG.
Tree carried the bottle for the next few days for some reason or another. And one day it is randomly split open!
Demons started crawling up the cliff faces, searching for a soul to eat.
A sacrificial lamb (unnamed) is ... sacrificed and the demons have settled the debt.
THE unfulfilling END.
~~~
This is a random piece of netting in Brian's tent. We had no idea what it was for. Brian theorised that it was to trap bugs or moisture. I theorised that it was a crucial component in defending against abduction beams from UFO's. I called it an Abductor Reductor.
This was closer to the mark than expected, as installing this required putting the body in such an angle that your abs get quite a workout. Here are a couple of pictures Brian took of me installing the abductor reductor.

~~~
EDIT:
Here's more stuff that should be remembered
Tree: I'm going to buy Apple when I grow up and call it Apple Tree?
Me: So we're putting our last names after companies, are we? I'm gonna buy Microsoft and call it Microsoft Wang *pun master*

Also in Big 2 we must never forget the effectiveness of the Sicilian Opening LOL.
~~~
Now have some pretty pictures =) (in 8mp glory, of course)

7 silver linings to a breakup

Written from a male perspective because I really don't want to say "boyfriend/girlfriend", every single time.

Dunno why I felt like writing this but I'm gonna come back to this some time in the future and think "wow my situation is completely unique. Nobody understands this situation. Least of all past me. Why would he understand? I'm fucking special (so fucking special *chk-chk, chk-chk*). I'm gonna ignore shit I say here because this time it's different."
But in truth (and retrospect), relationships are 1% unique and 99% all the same shit. Even if I deny it, I know I'm ultimately going to end up taking my own advice. Because shit's not fucking different. Shit's never different.

1) You have more friends than you previously appreciated.

Sample:
Me: "After all this time?"
Bro: "Always."
=P.

2) Be thankful that it actually happened.

Is that really worse than it not happening at all? When you asked them out, you must've liked them enough to deduce that getting them to say yes is worth any potential of break up later. Pretty sure every (most? many?) guy goes through this tedious mind-over-matter process of:

• Kay gonna ask her out
• What if she says no?
• I can deal with that - free adrenalin rush, get to compliment myself on my balls of steel.
• What if it ends up not working?
• Then we can end it - if she's not happy, neither am I.
  
• How would I deal with the breakup?
• I like her enough right now that if I don't take this chance to ask her out, I think I might hate myself forever.
  
• Yeahp asking her out then.
• Optional pussying out 
• Time passes...
• FUCK YES I'M THE KING OF THE WOOOOORLD!

In short - suck it up, you had fun. It was worth it when you asked her.

3) While you may not be happy for y amount of time due to your breakup, you were happy for the past x months.

Because you had the balls to ask her out. Go you! Pretty sure if you do the maths,  
x*[degree of happiness] > y*[degree of sadness]
Again - suck it up, you had fun. Unless, of course, you didn't have fun, in which case, why the fuck are you even sad?

4) If you didn't do anything wrong, and it just fell apart, then you just left the relationship guilt-free.

Sure, you may be sad, but you can always get over sadness faster than guilt. Guilt makes you feel like a bad person. Sadness inevitably turns to "the fuck do I give a shit for? PARTY!". Guilt is like "Man I screwed that up. If I were richer, I'd still be with her - ain't that some shit! I wish I had another chance!". If it helps, and it comes to that, just think of the other person as a bitch LOL. Spite soothes. This is like, it's not you it's her. Now gtfo. Suck it up, had fun.

5) You moved fast enough to like her while she was still cool.

Or before she became cool. Whatever suits your hipster needs. If they changed and they are no longer the girl you fell for, then give yourself a hi5 for acting with a sense of urgency and getting as much of the glory moments as you could possibly muster.
This is like - you don't know who she is anymore. Maybe you should get her to read you your notebook to overcome your Alzheimer's. Lol jokes you have perfect memory and you are perfectly lucid - she's changed and she definitely doesn't have the dedication to read you your diary every day (or build a house or send a letter every day etc etc.)

6) Been there done that

All future suitors have to deal with their guilty conscience (Been there, done that.. aw fuck it... What am I sayin? Shoot em both Grady, where's your gun at?).
It's like, if you were a dog marking your territory, taking a piss, and later going "This isn't really mine anymore". And other dogs come along and are like "yeah this isn't his anymore. Still smells like him though. Awks."
Like in HIMYM when Barney messed up Ted by telling him he'd been there done that, and theres little dancing Barneys everywhere LOL

And finally,

7) Doesn't matter - had sex!

(That's a link)
(That's not porn LOL)


WOO and I'm done. Thinking ahead for future Jeff. I owe me one xP


So yeah I'm gone for the next 10 days. Hope I left on a high note =P. There's not too much for girls in this post, but next post will have a comment (should I still think it's a good idea) that should have interesting reactions xP

fucking deep

And so I celebrate my first stupid photo + filter + helvetica creation:

Behold, in 8mp glory,

=P


And a special rage comic to someone who does not 9gag:

"Creation" by Tom, Max, Tree, Saj, Freya, Jeff =P

Found on the vote page at:
http://9gag.com/gag/930264

That was simultaneously the most retarded and most awesome cake I have ever eaten.
Some quotes that cannot be forgotten:

Max: DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS
Michael: IT'S A LAIR!

Samuel: You almost sliced my face off.

Everyone: I ATE SOME MINERALS. WHAT IS THIS SHIT.

Samuel: Fuck, I ate the hidden warheads *proceeds to die*

So much fun creating that pile of icing epic cake =)

day at the beach

Beach was pretty fun =)

Would've been epicer with all of meatloaf there though =(. But it was too cold to do actual beachy shit, so we played vortex and a little beach cricket and some scrubs lost Ben Zhu's frisbee and boomerang.

Then we went to Sandbar to chill with the year 12's. Then went to have fish and chips. Then came back and snapped a couple of pictures =P

I then became obsessed with the perfect tumblr photo of the general sad message of "we like love but it sucks quite a bit"

It took a good 30 mins because at first, my first concept was to make two sets of footprints, mine and a girl's. However, it's really difficult to get a nice footprint on the wet sand (or at least a part of wet sand that the waves look likely to hit again)
With Eileen's help (she was being a genius that day - and that day ONLY mind you xP), she suggested we just write a message in the sand.

So in the cheesiest way imaginable, I wrote "I love you". Apparently I draw nice hearts LOL

So I sat and waited for ages because sand that is too wet doesn't write nicely, and sand that is too dry means that waves don't ever hit it.

So I Googled Helvetica and found out it was expensive as fuck, so I found an almost-but-not-quite alternative. FUCK THE SYSTEM. I'm doing my own shit xP

And one last one, for your viewing pleasure - This picture is in full 8mp glory, so enjoy fullscreen 8D

I hope you guys realise the captions have nothing to do with anything, let alone with the people I'm taking piccies of :L
This is all for fun.


Addendum:

Yeah you guys are all fucked. I am now hipster level 99 xP

just add helvetica

I am going to be a hipster (like everyone else), take a regular photo, apply a nice filter, optionally add helvetica, and pretend it's art. Maybe I grabbed the attention of some people who don't like reading this blog. =P

This is thanks muchly to Yun, who wrote this on an Intuition booklet when I suggested making a Tumblr photo. Our class tutor, while marking my booklet, circled it and wrote "??" next to it xP.

But I want to talk about both friendzone (where no mortal man dares to tread) and bros (with the complementary hos).

Friendzone, I define as, when you go through the motions of courting but you fuck it up and no longer remain a serious candidate. This is usually the unwilling male trying too hard to be the nice guy, remains too nice, overshoots the optimum "nice guy" zone, and lands himself squarely in the sticky friendzone.
Like those golf games or whatever, where you have to hit the ball at a certain velocity so that you a) make the distance and b) still have control over where the ball goes. For friendzone, this can be seen as a) showing that you care but b) not that much.
Then there is pseudo-friendzone, where it is mutually agreed upon that you guys are not ever gonna be banging, but would make good friends. Symptom of this is when you go to each other for relationship advice/gossip. It's actually quite a pleasant place to be, unlike the real, original friendzone. Because this time, at least we're willing.

There is no escape from original friendzone. The only reason we were so shocked by Chandler+Monica is because HE WAS IN THE MOTHER FUCKING FRIENDZONE. HE DID NOT JUST GET OUT. The key is to avoid it in the first place - how you do that is completely up to you xP

Also, never let it be forgotten that bros before hoes should always be your motto. Chicks before dicks (or whatever the fuck the attempt to counter bros before hos is) is a similar one that applies to girls.
As a good bro said:

Taking hos over bros is like selling a cow to buy milk.

So basically - if you get interested in to other gender, don't forget your friends who have lasted forever. Because chances are, your bf/gf will last far from forever.

While we're on mottos - my new way of thinking is "Because I can". Shit I do does not need justification. Thinking less and doing more is much favourable over thinking more and doing less.


I am preparing a monster post with lots of encryptions because it is a topic that not everyone is designed to read (sorry!). I will engineer my encryptions so that the right people will be able to access it. I hope it's clever enough to filter out the right people.

Now I need to test headings because I have to do some HTML-ing, and must see how the titles look. Bar this please.

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

disrespect

As I have mentioned previously, I am saddened by those who own smartphones/DSLRs but clearly have no idea how to use them.

Linking on from that, I have a similar feeling for people who do subjects, but are against a key element of said subject. I can speak for my sciences:

Physics and Chemistry usually have people complaining about either concepts or calculations, but whatever, they can be hard.
Biology, however. Why would you complain about seeing blood, seeing guts, seeing bugs, dissecting organs, etc, if you chose to do Biology?! What did you think we were going to do? That is obviously inevitable in Biology - deal with it in advance please.

I can't be bothered being eloquent anymore, I'm tired :L

my soul!!!

When memes explain freaking everything, 9gag has won.

This was my reaction (on two occasions) when I learnt a seemingly new fact about Rebecca:

9gag is cruel and unforgiving. But so good.

numberz

Hello there.

I sent out a mass text but it says "message delivery failed". But a couple of people have replied, so it didn't fail as hard as it thought it did.

In any case, if you didn't get it,

tell me what my old number was. This is without spaces (eg 0444123456)

Yayz

Yeah that's it I'm too cbf for anything else.

learn to fly

I was talking to Yip today, about stuff like selective test and primary school and stuff like that.

Remember when we read books on dinosaurs and aeroplanes and the Universe and forests and bugs and electricity and on and on and on? Not because we were going to be tested on it, but because we were curious? Because we wanted to?

We no longer learn because we like to. We learn to succeed in exams. We don't give a shit about what's outside our syllabus.

If in Chemistry, the teacher dares to stray off and explains the chemical composition of say, Ziegler-Natta catalyst in any detail, there's bound to be at least one student going "what the fuck are we learning this for? Follow the syllabus, bitch".

Hence we don't learn to learn, we learn for marks, QED.

love

You'd think a flash game with spinning squares would be rather lame.

But I found this game on Kongregate while earning the Badge of the Day - this game is really clever, and the symbolism is pretty awesome. You have to watch the tutorial to get the full effect of the metaphor, but I enjoyed its wit thoroughly.

Here is the link to the game, Love.

check

[ ] Pen (2 or more)
[ ] Whiteout (tape/liquid)
[ ] Pencil (2 or more, or a pacer)
[ ] Eraser
[ ] Calculator
[ ] Ruler
[ ] Mathaid
[ ] Stapler
[ ] Highlighter
[ ] Compass
[ ] Clear pencil case
[ ] Writing pad 
[ ] Bottle of water
[ ] Stopwatch

[ ] A shitload of luck.

on repeat

Cannot get this out of my head:

"You gotta lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go
You only got one shot, do not miss this chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime"

Hopefully I can remember English quotes with as much enthusiasm T.T

Doing maths past papers and not being able to concentrate on keywords in questions =(
2010 3U has some bastard questions.

Good luck to all

Remember week 8 is not post exams, it's pre-term 1 exams xP


Addition:
Quote 9gag:
"Men are all the same? Nobody told you to try them all"
LOLOL

i like it - i'm not gonna crack

I miss you - I'm not gonna crack
I love you - I'm not gonna crack
I killed you - I'm not gonna crack

I love the way Nirvana makes me feel xP

Anyhoos I was interested in how to apologise. I asked a question on Formspring - You are talking to someone and you say something and they get really pissed off. You can see why they are annoyed, but you feel that what you said was not offensive at all. You can see, however, that they are really annoyed. How do you apologise?

Usually this happens with girls because between genders, words mean two different things, and it asplodes.
And I suppose intergender has the potential to have a little thing called feelings which amplify everything.
Anyways yeah often I do shit and am like "awesombeans". But I see a pissed a face and I'm like "uhh holy shit what did I do".
Them: "Herp blah derp you did this"
Me: "That?!"
Them: "Omfg *insert rant*"

So I sit there and go "why is anyone flaming me for this?" without saying anything back because then I wouldn't be respecting women and their opinions because guys are chauvinist pigs.

Usually I say "sorry" and even if it doesn't actually resolve the problem, I can hope it won't be pressed.

Because every time I try to defend myself it gets dismissed as an excuse and I'm like: Yes... these excuses are exactly why I feel like I didn't do anything wrong.

But yeah is there supposed to be some way where we can communicate what the fuck is going on in some way that isn't so inefficient? =P

Formspring's answers are either "fuck apologising if you aint done nothing wrong", or my preferred answer: Apologise for the offence that it caused you, but assert that I don't and won't feel bad about the actual act because I felt the act was acceptable, just not around you.

But sometimes it's so much easier and effort saved if you just admit defeat to a girl. Cos honestly, who's really going to remember :L


And to the concerned anon who asked (hopefully you read this) - No it wasn't that incident, thanks for caring =)


Hi anyone who likes Harry Potter:

music theory

I've finished Fuck It All 8D. Still a few hiccups in the playing but as long as you know what I mean. I've only spent 4 days on it and sometimes I lag for a millisecond remembering what comes next xP.
For the more astute listener you can hear all the pedal and pickup switches, which further screw with my memory xP. But I got it all down alright =)

Have a listen if you have time, and comment somewhere if you have any comments xP
Fuck It All (Final) by jwhero

And here are some thoughts collected over time about music, some of which may or may not have been said by friends that I have talked to. I can't remember. Anyways, here they are:

Two most rewarding things a human can experience is creation and destruction.

It's less about how it sounds than how it feels.

It's better to play less notes and mean every note than to play more notes and only mean half of them.

There's more to playing than what can be written on sheet music. But not for lack of trying xP.

Recording music is also an art. When I open a track and see that all of the waveforms peak, I wonder why they do. But meh I rarely listen to my music loud enough that the peaks become obvious, so it's all good in the end.

Nobody will ever play the song exactly the same way as someone else. That's what makes listening to covers fun (if they're not total shit)

My signature while in non-lead playing is strumming in semiquavers with emphasis on the 1st, 4th and 7th beats. ie it counts 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2. Brian knows exactly what I mean :L

I've made up a bajillion riffs/ideas but I've only five that made me feel good. Those are the ones I continued into songs. Four of those songs are Porcelain Castle (Delay Song), As The Rain Falls, HAPIHEW, and Fuck It All.
I forgot to show you guys Porcelain Castle (Delay Song), so here's a widget. The shit sound quality is because it was recorded with my phone from yonks back. Note to self to redo this song.
Porcelain Castle (Delay Song) by jwhero

thoughts

1) Anticipation is more powerful than satisfaction. We are born to take things for granted.
I can always count down how many days till stuff like birthdays, holidays, exams. So usually I know the date - ("only 2 weeks till ag, must be the 10th!"). But keeping track after? Holy shit never happens. Third day after Ag I was just like "herp derp time to use a calendar app"

2) It's nice when people take pictures of the board in class, and then send it to people on their table. Nobody asked for it but it's a nice gesture =) Make me de smile.

3) I am saddened by people with expensive technology who use it as if they had cheap technology. Smartphones and DSLR cameras are the worst offenders.

4) A quote from Kurt Cobain: "I'd rather be hated for who I am than to be loved for who I'm not."

5) Worrying about girls at our age is like juniors worrying about their exams - hold your horses, this aint the real shit yet.

6) New song when I was randomly inspired today - this is far from perfect playing, but at least it gets the idea down xP. Will refine it when I've written the whole song. It's called "Fuck It All". As an extension from point 5, we may think we have problems but we really don't. I like to think of it as a song for teen angst :L
Fuck It All by jwhero

7) My newest neighbours listen to nice music. Today they're listening to Letterbomb - Green Day. Before they've played Nirvana and Muse. Am quite the impress. Unfortunately they sing along and that makes it not so good.

what is love? baby don't hurt me

Whatever the fuck was going on in As You Like It, it was not love. It's hardly even infatuation.

I bet you anything that if I even remotely liked a girl, if she dressed up in drag and we talk while she is in her "disguise", I will freaking recognise her.

Like honestly, it's a freaking "man" with a non-broken voice, with feminine face bones, with presumably breasts... Maybe she wears so much makeup in the court that as soon as she takes it if she's unrecognisable. Youtube makeup gurus are the epitome of this :L

But it's true. She's just horny. She only wants a "man in [her] belly" teehee. Sorry I just had to use the euphemism. Shakespeare is a freaking genius xP

In other news the LifeProof case arrived today but I don't have a phone yet woot woot. My plan is to receive the phone and case it up asap so that it does not get exposed to the harsh elements of the real world.

so, toilets.

Before I begin I would like to clarify the question inflection.
If you were asked by someone like a teacher, ie you were being tested ("So, what is the final velocity of the particle?"), it is totally fine to answer "62metres per second, 20 degrees to the horizontal?". Because it makes sense if you put "is it..." before it.
Now if someone is asking you for your opinion or for your help or personal experience or something where the asker doesn't know the answer, like my example before: "How did you calculate the square root?", you do not say "Use a calculator?" because you are not asking your friend "Shit bro, did I use a calculator?". You are saying "I used a calculator", but with the question mark it means "Is there any other way than to use a calculator? (presumably followed by "you fucktard?")"
Now if you really need situational clarification, feel free to ask me :L

And an addition:
Ellipsis is the extreme assholery form of question marks.
Lol's and haha's at the end of explanations is just redundant. It makes no sense but it's probably condescending :L

And @anon I have yet to meet someone who really uses the question inflection while explaining their own opinion, explaining a fact, or while recounting an anecdote.


So today in the break after Intuition I was talking with Yun and Gina in Subway.

We were talking about calories after they commented that I probably eat 1000 calories a day. I insist I more than likely eat more than 2000, but I can't quantitatively disprove them since I cbf with the maths :L

Anywhos Yun made the comment: "I wish I were a guy, it seems so much easier"
Gina: "I don't"
Me: "Guys don't have to wait in line for toilets"
Yun: "Girls don't cross swords while peeing"

Which is the point when everyone goes "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!"

And during English a while back, Crystal was all like HOW DO YOU PEE AT A URINAL? WHAT IF SOMEONE TRIES TO LOOK AT YOUR PENIS? ISN'T IT WEIRD STANDING SO CLOSE TO EACH OTHER? and I think Bonnie was also curious but I forgets.

I'm interested - what the hell do girls think goes on in boys toilets?

And do girls ever have naked pillow fights? :L

So here comes the belief system again regarding the other gender. Really, nobody knows what it's like being the other gender and should stop guessing as to whether it's easier or harder.

You know how they say when it comes to relationships, women form expectations from TV shows and novels? (implication that men form expectations from experience)
I finally found the comeback with an equal amount of truth: When it comes to sex, men form expectations from porn.

Touche.

this is halloween

This is beyond awesome =D.

Sad how stranger danger doesn't exist in a country where it is a constitutional right to own firearms =P

Posts will be irregular now because I hardly even turn on the computer. Please be crey.


And I'll take it as a "no, nobody wants cases" ='(
Forever alone.

powerful phone protector plus pet peeves

So I found an awesome case for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. Ordering from the US, and I might as well get more if anyone wants it, because I don't think they sell it Australia. Saves you from ordering one yourself, as well as only 1 charge for shipping for multiple items (Y). So if you're interested, tell me here, MSN, email, text, I don't care =D

Without further ado, I present the Lifeproof case:
It's shockproof [(Military Specifications MIL-STD-810F-516.5 (2 meters/6.6ft drop on all surfaces and edges. 26 tests) - if that means something to you]
It's waterproof and dustproof (full IP-68 rating against water and dust, and designed to Military Specifications.) Dunno what that is, but it means 2m submersion is safe.
It's also snowproof and I'm sure we'll be needing a lot of that soon. /sarcasm

And here are pictures of the black and white cases (there are pink and purples as well)

If you wanna see it on the original site, you can see it on Lifeproof.com. It lists all its features and etc.

It's much slimmer and elegant-er than you'd expect from something that protects your phone from all that shit. But now you'll probably doubt it's protectiveness, so check the next two videos if you're in that zone.

Here's a video released by Lifeproof. It shows a shitload of abuse, way beyond what normal people do. But it covers dropping the case while it's on your lap and you're exiting the car. Or you just drop it by accident:


Here's one at the beach demonstrating mainly waterproof-ness



Now, the price. It is advertised at $80, but plus p&h will be anywhere up to $95. Obviously, the more people who want one, the closer it approaches $80 xP. This is pretty steep, but if you go sportsing with your phone, hiking with your phone, beaching with your phone, or drop your phone/scared of dropping your phone, then it might be worth it, seeing as your iPhone 4 costs upwards of $800.

Now since I caveat emptor'd the shit out of this, and so should pass on to you, here are pros and cons.

Pros (I gathered these from review vids):
Well it IS kinda waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, snowproof. Unless you're being a massive idiot and pegging it around, your iPhone is freaking safe.
You can take it anywhere! ANYWHERE!
All buttons are accessible, chargeport can be accessed by flipping the bottom catch open (obviously this will de-waterproof it while it's undone but you shouldn't be getting it while wet while charging anyway)
The material on the outer casing doesn't grab lint at all.
It's so thin and sexy!
It uses something that makes the whole case resonate, so that sound from speakers can travel through the waterproof case. Speaker and microphone quality shouldn't be affected - they will replace it if it's terrible.
Apparently the home button feels even nicer to press.
Separated optical lens for flash and camera - no chance of flashback, and hax clarity.

If I haven't mentioned it as a con, you can imagine that it's a pro :L

Cons:
Screen protector is glossy and takes getting used to. It's not adhesive, so it may need to be "broken in" to sit nicely against the screen.
The volume and lock button are not as crisp, but still easily accessible since the case is so thin.
It's not designed to be taken on and off frequently. Unless you're cleaning the interior or repairing, it basically should never come off.
(Minor)Silent/ringer switch is reversed, ie pull to the right for silent, pull to the left to ringer.
The chargeport basically only fits the original Apple iPhone cable.
Pretty freaking expensive
Only for iPhone 4 and 4S


If there's an issue I haven't mentioned, please talk to me =D
Ordering on Nov 1 btw. So tell me before then (Y)






PEW for PET PEEVE
I hate question marks that shouldn't be there. Like when people tell you shit? And it's meant to be a full stop but they do this instead?
Because people designed full stops for a reason - for sentences that aren't fucking questions.
Question mark is for real questions. If you want to tell me something, I should be the one asking questions if any.
I mean, if you're asking "Do you remember how to calculate molar mass?", then it is a freaking question. You can use a question mark, because it doesn't make sense with a full stop. This is totally awesome because you understand basic grammar.
"Do it like you did for sodium hydroxide?" is not a freaking question. It is an imperative, changed to annoying form via the use of incorrect punctuation. This is not totally awesome because you need to go back to year 1 to learn what a question mark is for.
Question mark is called question because you are asking a question. Seems obvious but apparently is not. When in doubt, just don't put punctuation. This usually happens on IM or text, and hence people don't care about punctuation anyway.

WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME A QUESTION.
The justification I hear is: "That's how I'd say it in real life?"
My answer: "It's fucking annoying in real life too."

How often have you heard (primary school) teachers say "Don't answer a question with a question" or "Am I asking the question, or are you?", or just "Are you sure?", until you stop using a bloody question inflection.

Thank you and good night

exeunt

YAY no more Ag. Enough said.

Chilled with some Ag kids at Carlo Court and were loud and probably disrupted a few people's meal times.

Feels good to have a free morning on Tuesday, and of course, 5 more free study periods a fortnight.


Now some largely unrelated musings about living organisms.

Cells divide without really knowing why they're dividing. They think they're living their own lives and dividing for themselves - but they help us function as a whole organism.

What if life on Earth is really just a huge pseudo-organism? Different species are analogous to different cell types.

Because, do you know why you reproduce? Apart from "to have sex". Which is a major part of it, but why?. Life could have just programmed us to really want to reproduce, with no real reason at all, but the reason is just to keep life on Earth alive.

So just like we drive our minions (our cells) to keep us alive, so does Nature drives minions (us! =O) to keep itself alive.

Why am I even talking I should be sleeping lolol

seedy cp on pc cd.

Before I begin the anecdote, I'll explain the titular pun that I thought of a while ago.
Seedy = ... Obvious ain't it.
CP = It's better if you don't understand. Go ask a guy who would know about this kind of stuff.
PC = Personal Computer
CD = Compact Disc

ANECDOTE!

So we had a massive chain of puns at a Cadet power meeting.

So Kerry (Xue) was spinning his phone on the table, and touching the screen so it leaves circular marks on the screen.

Kerry: "Looks kinda like a CD"
Jeff: "Yeah but it's pretty seedy cos it's all like finger grease and shit"
*facepalms all around*
Brian: "Hey look, it's your CDR*!"
Jeff: "Yeah, the CDR is even seedier**"
Kerry: "My circles aren't really good though. You might need a bit of OCD to get them perfect."

[Shits and giggles]

*CDR is a Cadet Development Report
**It was! It was all stepped on and muddy and shit =(


A picture that I took of our hard work. There are 2 school laptops, 1 home laptop, an iPad, and I was referencing my iPod Touch as well. We used all of them.

If I recall correctly:
Main Laptop - The one used to enter the information into the Rolls and the Training Program
School Laptop (left) - A list of activities that we intend to do but we did not place into the Training Program
School Laptop (right) - Opened to last year's Term 4 Training Program so we have a template to work off
iPad - Training Objectives so we can devise new activities
iPod Touch - Whatever random extra stuff we needed

Training Plan - A list of activities and their timings that we (Brian, Johnny, Kerry and I) write, and intend to train our cadets with for the upcoming term
Training Objectives - A list of things that Australian Army Cadets wrote that they want the cadets in Australia to know about.

When we realised how awesome it was that we had all this crap open and we were actually using it, we knew we had to take a photo (Y).

A high 5 to Brian, Johnny and Kerry for being awesome =D

word neutering

It's amazing how douchebag the general population is. This particular aspect is an everlasting tradition that has been passed down from generation. Take the number of medical terms used to mean "intellectual disability" in the past. Then consider how they have been turned into "you're stupid" slurs. Then consider how overused those slurs were that it became "uncool" to use that word.

Btw all smart-sounding historical facts I quote are from Wiki unless linked otherwise.

This is has a much lower potential to be upsetting as the last one. If you were fine with the last post, you'll be great with this post, and I welcome you. If you were not, you're entering at your own risk.

Don't pretend that this post exists in full somewhere other than after you click "Read More". It doesn't exist in my blog homepage, it doesn't exist in Google Reader, it doesn't exist on your Dashboard cos I changed the feed settings.
In the case of technological fuck-up, you can still turn away because I've waffled on for 2 paragraphs (and 1 to come) that you have the opportunity to leave. (And then tell me how you found the whole post so I can fix that.)

So a break here where you can rethink your life choices and decide if you want to quit while you're ahead (and go somewhere else), or continue and agree not to complain (complain =/= discuss btw. Discuss is fine.) later if you regret your choice.

enter in style

So yesterday, Period 6, I had my first free ever.

It was a day of smooth sailing.

I sauntered into Ext English, dropped off my orange slip, walked out with a spring in my step, getting as far away from Navigating the Global as my lanky legs can take me.

I leave behind memories of Street Fighter IV over Bluetooth, analysis of Daffodils by writing a poem, Monica's epic Paint-rendered pictures, Tilt to Live over Bluetooth, playing Infinity Blade back to back, and generally having nfi what we're doing until a couple of weeks before the big exam.

But I made sure I broke my free period hymen in the correct way.

I was with Tree at the end of lunch (he came from the same 3U class as I did).

First, we had to rub it in to Brian that he didn't manage to get this free because his teacher was not present. It was like
"HEY BRIAN, LETS GO LETS GO PLAY!"
"Dude I have Bio. I haven't dropped it yet."
"Ohhhh NOOOOOO. How come I didn't know that? Shiiiit that's too bad Brian. That's too bad. Sucks to be you"
"You guys are fags"
*victory dance*

Nextly we found Max in the library and flamed him for doing work. Promptly borrowed Carcasonne and subsequently became the most obnoxious table in the library. We were seated in the dead centre of the desks in the middle, so we could distract a maximum amount of people. No like, literally we were like "LETS GO IN THE MIDDLE SO WE CAN ANNOY EVERYONE". That being said, people started watching us and were like MEH SCREW WORK.

We played herped and derped in Carcasonne. I ended up losing quite badly :L but I had fun fucking up castles and stuff and kinda forgot to make my own shit. And then Tree and Max got their miracle piece and I got destroyed. Creds to you if you understand what the hell I mean.

But credits where it's due, it wasn't the same without you Brian. Your scheming and stupid comments add a new retardimension that we 3 alone could not muster.

We still had fun, though, and you should be sour that you missed out.

But yeah looking at the amount of maths I have atm, I think I might actually use my next few frees to like... do ... work. That thing.


PS Just extra stuff that isn't worth its own post:
I found a beautiful feed (as in blog feed) manager available on iOS and on Android. It's called Pulse News and I fell in love with its UI. On it I found 2 articles worth sharing.
1) Samsung motherfreaking fail -> http://allthingsd.com/20111013/how-do-you-tell-the-difference-between-an-ipad-and-a-galaxy-tab-dont-ask-samsungs-lawyers/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews
OHMYGAWD imagine how awkies it would be being represented by these lawyers. This is gold xP
2) For iOS5, get 50g of cloud space! -> http://blog.box.net/2011/10/12/were-giving-ios-users-insane-amounts-of-free-storage-box50gb/
Grab this if you intend on getting iOS5 =D. 50 days only!

got your back, jack. bitches be crazy

3 parts for you today. All based on the quote "Got your back, Jack. Bitches be CRAZY!". Brownie points for recognising xP.

Table of Contents
Part 1 - Saj being awesome
Part 2 - My attempt at being awesome
Part 3 - The controversial part that people might get pissed off at but read anyway, just so they can get pissed off and express their views.

Part 1

Saj (disgusted tone): And those chicks, I swear they all either wear short shorts or yoga pants
Jeff: What's so bad about yoga pants?
Saj: They're pretty bad when you can tell they obviously do not do yoga
Jeff: *respect*

Part 2

I was trying to be witty on Formspring when I answered a question:

What inspires you and why?

And I answered that,

Girls at their best and worst inspire lots of stuff.
The piddly amount of songs not about girls is a tribute to this.

Wow guys think about girls a lot.

All the bloody songs are like really positive like "my girl's the best oooh yeah never wanna let her go, I want this to never end, just like a mobius strip woooo. She should strip like a mobius strip because she's also very hot. Let's have sex now!" or some angry emo shit like "fuck you bitch, it hurts so bad, like a sharp stick stuck into my foot, and then I stacked it and the sharp stick also stabbed into my chest. It hurts so bad in my heart."

Anyways this is the first time since forever that I've actually had no-one on my mind. It's been such a long time. You know how it's "don't miss the water till the well runs dry", but like the other way. It's like "never realised how thirsty you are until you reach a well". And even then it's not correct. It's not like it's not fun being involved or trying to get involved with someone. It's just different.

So the correct saying would be "Didn't realise how good Sprite tastes after you've been drinking lots of Coke." And vice versa when you switch back again.

Part 3

Why does the argument "swear words are directed at women" even exist?
TRIGGER ALERT if swearing, especially ones targeting men, women, LGBT, racial slurs, offend you. Read more to continue.

differentiation

I hear lots of people using the word "derive" to mean "take the derivative of" or "differentiate". I personally don't like this term.

While I cannot definitively say that the usage of "derive" to mean "differentiate" is incorrect, I can definitely say I have never seen a textbook or a teacher use "derive" to mean "dy/dx".

I feel the need to differentiate (haw haw) between the two, and explain the usage of the two in mathematics.

Differentiate
This means to take the derivative of. This means dy/dx. This means "kick the power down, subtract one from the power".

Derive
This means "prove" or "find". This means if "a + b = c", then we can derive that "a = c - b". If a question says "derive this function", it will always mean "look at the diagram and the information given, and use LHS = RHS to prove that the function given is correct". It will never mean "differentiate this function".

since i cbf

Have some witty puns I found. Highlight for punchlines.

Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.

Was that rage due to PMS?

Maybe it was just an ovary action.

If a 50g ruler is pushed with 5N of force for a total of 5 seconds, what is its final velocity? Ignore friction.

0. A ruler is always stationery.

If you hire an exorcist but don't pay up afterwards, prepare to be repossessed.

A soldier who has seen both mustard gas and pepper spray is one you would call a seasoned veteran.

Why did the condom fly across the room?

It was pissed off.

I read a book about anti-gravity. It was impossible to put down.

I was wondering why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

I was wondering where the sun goes when it's all dark. Then it dawned on me.

The wedding was so emotional that even the cake was in tiers.

I tried writing with a broken pencil. It was pointless.

I went out on a morning to try catch some fog in my net. I mist.

My sister set a tripwire which led to bras flinging eggs at you. One could call it a boobie trap.

Date once, date 'em all. Been shopping once, been to a mall.

I hired a painter to paint my house for me. I asked him where he gets the paint from and he told me it was on the house.

If you have phone sex you might get hearing aids.

I asked my butcher to fetch some meat from the top shelf. He only had a dodgy ladder. I offered him a tip. But he said the steaks were too high.

I tried to download porn on my computer but it just won't save. I think it lost its sex drive.

Child soldiers are legal. But only in the Infantry.

How do you make holy water?
Boil the hell out of it

Not a pun (stolen off anti-joke thread on reddit):
Why did Suzy fall off her bike?

Because she had no arms.

Knock Knock
(Who's there?)
Obviously not Suzy.

moral dilemma

I asked on Formspring the question of how these rank in importance: a person's intention, their method of achieving that intention, and the end result of everything they've done.

I have issues with every choice, which I will propose to you right now.

Before I do so, I should define each
Intention - This is what the person wants. It is an idea, and it is not represented by any physical means. A "good" intention is one that agrees with current social paradigms; a "bad" intention does not.
Method - This is they physical form of one's intentions. A "good" method is one that successfully and efficiently carries out one's intention. A "bad" method is one that either doesn't achieve the intention, or is just a morally incorrect way of achieving one's intention (eg intention to own a car - steal a car is a morally incorrect method)
Result - The final snapshot of the situation after all's been done and said. It ignores what has been done during the Method if the Result does satisfy the Intention.

Click "Read More" to start!

follow the leader

While we're on AFX stories...

On AFX I had a tacit disagreement with the adult officers about my role as a Cadet Under Officer.

I was a Syndicate Coordinator. Don't worry about what it means, except that it's just not the top job within our Course of 93 cadets, and I was responsible for 29 cadets (Y).

I led the way I liked, and they wanted me to conform to the CUO they liked. So you can see what went wrong there.

The way I interpreted my role was that I would plan stuff, find out what needs to be done, find ways to lift morale, and then pass it down to a Sergeant to actually get down and dirty with the cadets.

The way they interpreted my role was to go around and shout at the cadets myself, and give direct orders to the cadets. Now I didn't believe this was correct, and hence didn't engage in this properly, and ended up ostracising myself from the adult officers and instead developing better relations with my cadets (the other CUOs who conformed to the adult officer's views obviously ended up doing the exact opposite).

Now I'd like to mention that CUO Gao (Brian) led in the way that I intended to (that is, not much shouting at the troops. Instead, officers should be planning stuff and finding out things to fix, then passing it down to someone else to shout about). He ended up winning the Best Coy award (a Coy is a Company, a group of 60-80 cadets). He is a smug douchebag and you should punch him when you next see him kkthnx ;)

Here is the time to point out that, in Cadets at least, there is no such thing as a single good leader. There is only such thing as a good command team. There needs to be some magical chemistry from CUO to Warrant Officers to Sergeants to Corporal to the Cadets. If any of those links have bad chemistry in between them, then it all falls apart and no matter how epic the CUO is, it'll be difficult to run it spectacularly.

Even though Brian is smug forever that his Charlie Company won Best Coy award (don't forget to punch him), he knows that he couldn't have done it if his CSM and SGTs weren't also capable (except for a certain SGT who we won't mention here xP)

In that respect, being a "good leader" means firstly knowing how to make good decisions, knowing your role, then being able to connect with many types of other leaders (inferior or superior). There exists not a universally good leader, but only a leader that has the potential to lead well under as many circumstances as possible.Even the "best" leaders will find someone who they don't get along with, and things won't run as smoothly as desired.

Nextly, semi-relatedly, there's what I call "immediate" leadership and then there's "sustainable" leadership. In my mind, "immediate" leadership is the intimidating, rawrblargh in your face type, where shit gets done, and it getes done quickly, at the compromise of the happiness of your inferiors. It is effective in the short term, but it sacrifices morale, and in the end your troops will end up tired of your shit.
"Sustainable" leadership takes a while to get started, but it develops better rapport with the inferiors. In the beginning, the inferiors might think you soft and may not obey you. Also, without being rawblargh in your face, sometimes the message gets lost. But once it gets going, your inferiors will respect you (assuming that your actions and decisions to date have been good ones), and shit will get done with minimal input.

As Inception kindly pointed out, "positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time."

Here's my model atm for my interpretation of effectiveness:
- Don't say anything unless you are sure of what you want. When giving directions they should be clear cut and be completely unambiguous. Umm's and ahh's also make the inferiors doubt the solidness of your decisions, and hence get done with less conviction.
- Never let your inferiors know that you are flaming them because someone else flamed yourself first. Let's say it was because of rubbish. The CUO would wtf at the Warrant Officer, and the Warrant Officer will wtf at the Sergeant. Now the Warrant Officer should flame the Sergeant because letting cadets leave rubbish around is wrong (not because the CUO flamed the Warrant Officer).
- Don't deny comforts unless there is a good reason to, and you can justify to your inferiors. If cadets are cold and they ask "Can I putz on a jumperz lol?", it's bad for morale if you say "no." You instead say "Don't put on a jumper unless you don't think you're going to survive. The sun's not down yet and it's yet to get colder."
- It's okay if there is a gap in your own knowledge. You just have to know how to find out. For instance, all I knew about asthma was that people can't breathe and they should puff from their reliever. I had the fortune of having a cadet say "Sir, I can't breathe." I knew very little about asthma, but I made sure she was holding her reliever while I sat her down. Note that this was during the abseiling activity, where no adult officers were present yet, and the St John's standby team was yet to arrive. If there are any cadets here, want to take a guess as to how I obtained the knowledge of how I knew how to deal with this attack?
- There needs to be a balance between being close enough with your inferiors so that they can trust you, yet be distant enough that you can give them orders.

Now I asked on Formspring for people to rate in order of importance - Results, Intention, Method. Here again I come back to this to evaluate a situation. I believe that the officers rated my performance valuing method over results and intention. I also noticed on Formspring that almost nobody (only 2 out of 33 people) chose Method as the most important result. My personal view on the rank of importance is [lol jokes you can find out in the next post when I go into this in detail].

In the eyes of the adult officers, my Method was shithole, my Intention was assumed to be good, but it was undeniable that the Results were better than they expected.
The Cook-Off wasn't due to any input from leadership, but the mini Chief of Army Challenge was! Each platoon (~30 cadets) was split up into sections of 9-10 cadets. They went around to various activities as a "test of objectives" to confirm that the week's training was successful and they remember how to do their shit. Out of the 12 sections that participated, first place and third place went to sections in my platoon (3PLT cheer! Lol jokes nobody from 3PLT is reading this).
Due to the nature of leadership that I stated before, it's impossible to claim my cadets victories throughout the week in my name alone - I could only make sure my Corporals were happy enough to keep the cadets happy motivated enough to learn and participate. As cheesy as it sounds, it was a team effort.

Anyways, storytelling aside - what do you think is the most important and least important out of Results, Intention and Method? Remember your answer because my next post will be quite the epic if I do say so myself.

drawingz

I bought a viewee tooee (a notebook thing of sorts) for Cadets, and now I want to draw something on the front of it so I can tell which side is the front.

I have a few ideas in mind (I'm going to Sharpie the picture on)

AAC Crest

Rising Sun

Australian Coat of Arms

Stylised Coat of Arms

James Ruse Crest

JRAHSACU Hat Badge

In the end I settled with the AAC crest and ended up with something that looks like this

Needless to say I am quite proud. The text is a little bit wonky cos it's so hard to write along a curve, and also my right hand had nothing to rest on and was kinda hanging off the edge. Nonetheless it is still readable even though the pen really wasn't fine enough.

Don't worry, I didn't copy this freehand, I traced it using an ingenius method (yeah, fuck modesty). Ordinary lead pencil doesn't draw well on the cover and pressing down with a pen doesn't indent it visibly. But I persevered and succeeded 8D. I hope I never lose this =/

happiness is relative

What makes people happy? Is it purely based on what situation they are in right now?

How do you explain those people living in the cities in apartments, with more than enough food and water to sustain a balanced diet, with access to the internet and mobile phones, who are more down with life?
And compare these people to the islanders who only eat whatever the fuck they can find but are happy anyway?

It's all about frames of reference, and if you do physics, this would help a lot.

Now when people say they have a "need for speed", I find this quite inaccurate. They actually have a "need for acceleration". There is no thrill in travelling at a constant velocity of 100km/h. It feels just as thrilling as not travelling at all. Like, if you've sat on a subway before (hopefully a line that doesn't have many turns), there is no thrill of shooting around underground at 60km/h. Because travelling at a constant velocity exerts no force on the body, and hence you don't feel a thing.

Now the true thrill is when acceleration is experienced, ie when taking a sharp corner or when just straight out mashing the accelerator. The acceleration experienced by the body will cause the thrill.

Now I think the same works for happiness. An improvement in one's current situation will result in happiness. If one's situation is good for an extended period of time, it starts to "travel at a constant velocity", and hence they feel nothing. They can feel satisfied, but it's much harder to feel happy.

What you need to feel happy is a massive change in perspective or frame of reference. Going on AFX was just the thing for me. We lived in hootchies (click to see a pic of one that looks much like the one I set up myself), lived on ration packs for 7 days, constantly got rained on and blown around by the wind, had to deal with pricky officers (I did, at least - Brian had cool officers =C). We didn't have any resources to wash clothes, bodies, or even properly wash our hands. We also had to constantly work to keep our cadets happy despite all this.

This was my frame of reference. And now here's the "acceleration".

Brian and I, on the last day of AFX, when battalion allowed us to chill and sleep with our own home units, set up a hootchie that was spacious (ie, large enough so we could comfortably sit up in). We ate a dinner portion about twice of what the meal plan suggests, and I had a can of Sprite. We brushed our teeth properly and took a dump.
We were, after 6 days, in contact with other Ruse kids. We could do whatever the fuck we liked for about 4 hours.

To us, that was luxury.

Reflecting on this, it's actually in quite poor conditions on the grand scale of things. We weren't clean, we were in a fucking tent (no matter how big), we only had dying torches and glowsticks, we had to walk about 300m to the toilet. But we were smug as hell and happy beyond belief. It's not because we were good on the grand scale of things. But the improvement in conditions was what made it so enjoyable.

So the analogy is:
Where almost dying is 0km/h
Where living in a small hootchie etc etc on the first 6 days of AFX was 20km/h.
Where the last day of AFX with larger hootchie and taking a dump, brushing teeth, etc was 40km/h.
And most of our current living conditions with ample access to running water, internet, etc is 80km/h

Most of us are cruising at 80km/h, and we don't feel a thing. Because a constant velocity has no thrill, and it actually feels the same as sitting in the same place. Now us cadets quickly decelerated to 20km/h (which was thrilling nonetheless, as deceleration is just negative acceleration). While this deceleration didn't make us happy, it did make us somewhat excited. So we cruised at 20km/h, feeling alright but not overjoyed, and when the speed bumped up to 25km/h (the sun was out YAY), there was distinct happiness. Then on the last day, we were bumped up to 40km/h very quickly, and that was a massive moment of joy (as happiness and acceleration are directly analogous).

The stop by McDonald's was a bump for the cadets up to 60km/h (but for Brian and me it was terrible because we weren't meant to stop), but you can tell how happy they were for the unexpected change in situation in such a short time.

So an increase in situation is analogous to an increase in velocity. And so acceleration is analogous to happiness.

Mathematically, if you differentiate distance (strictly displacement) wrt time, you get velocity. If you differentiate wrt time again, you get acceleration.
Similarly if you integrate acceleration wrt time, you get velocity, integrate again and you get displacement.
Now there is no suitable analogy for distance (situation is measured wrt time as well!), but velocity can be analogous to one's situation. If you differentiate the situation wrt time, you get happiness.
Similarly if you integrate the measure of happiness wrt time, you get the situation,

Hence happiness is defined by the measure of change in situation over time.

a compliment accomplishment

Giving compliments is harder than it is given credit for. Sometimes it seems like it's out of pity, sometimes it seems even seems condescending.

I want to post my 2U Representation of Women essay's comment:

"Starts well but becomes a bit incoherent at the end. However you do answer the question & show extensive knowledge of the text. You also (mercifully) desmonstrate sophisticated control of language in readable writing"

I know that this, in fact, is the equivalent of a glowing review. But it sure doesn't feel like it. Like the bit at the beginning, I'm not going to discuss cos it's a not a compliment. It is indeed constructive criticism because my essay did drop in quality after I got tired :L
But the additional word "mercifully", combined with me seeing everyone else's essays, makes it feel like a cheap moment of satisfaction. So in actuality the compliment was made stupid by implying that everyone else's essays sucked. So I didn't really enjoy that comment :L


Compliments are also always about timing. The subject of the compliment and the time it is given are subtly intertwined.
Like, if you're making out and then you say "Damn you're pretty", it would have less effect than if you said it while taking a walk through the park.
Because whether you intended to or not, because you're a dude and you're always wanting sex and you're a dick, if you give compliments during moments of intimacy you just want more sex. Truefact.
Certain praises during certain times can be described as "strings attached compliments".

So do comments about work. Like, a certain member of staff always gives unnecessariliy long speeches during assemblies that are tangent. But for the first time on Year 11 info night, I heard something useful. It went something along the lines of:
"Don't wait until after the results come back to praise them on their hard work. Don't even wait until after the exam to praise them on their hard work. Do it before the exam, where your compliment is completely unbiased by the actual occurence of the test"
And I found this a good idea. Giving praise/compliments as they are deserved is much more effective than a "Oh you got 30%? Well, you worked hard and you tried your best." No matter how you say it, it will always sound like either pity or condescension.

And if its a good result, it's like "Oh, 98%, son? Good, I see you worked hard enough.". And that is even worse than a "Wow 98% is a really good score. Good work". It's like, avoiding the actual compliment, which is the topic at hand, the mark. It's like the parent is just encouraging the kid to study more through that pseudo-compliment.

But if the praise was given before the actual test, the kid will know that they did indeed work hard, and regardless of the result, it will be true, even if their parents try to rescind that later xP.

So the unconditional nature of a compliment lends to its sincerity and any compliments with ulterior motives just feel cheap. And it's true. And remember it. Give them for the sake of complimenting and not for the sake of trying to please them or gain something from them (Y).

Semi-related topic. AC electricity can be shaped into many pick up lines. Take these key points and combine them at will 8D
I feel a spark/tingle/shock
Feels like a sine
I can't let go!
Solenoid + bar magnet to generate AC electricity. LET YOUR IMAGINATION RUN WILD.
Back and forth, back and forth motion of particles.


OH BEST EUPHEMISM FOR SEX THAT I HEARD IN AS YOU LIKE IT: "You just want to have a man in your belly"