Where is the love?…

Its 1.00 am and I am still up. Sometimes when I am alone I still think of them.

I wonder how they are all doing now. Miss their laughter, their cries, their youthful ignorance. Miss them calling me “brother Marcus”  Miss the times sending them home every sunday, chatting with them. Bringing them out used to be a nightmare, now how I wish I could live through it again. 

Being with the children makes me forget my problems and feel at ease. Carefree.

Matthew 19:14 - But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”

Sometimes I wish I could have done more to reach out to more of the kids, those whose parents paid no heed to their well-being, children living in an environment of instability. Through Revival Nation Community Services Association, we are able to help educate merely some, to give them support and hope when life gives them a reason not to.

I went to a focus group recently and the topic discussed was “what kind of causes are young people willing to commit to?” And one of the causes given was related to doing humanitarian aid in Africa. 

Are Singaporeans suffering from Hyperopia(farsightedness)? They see the sufferings of Africans in poverty and their heart bleeds for them. They see neighbors in need and are nonchalant about it. They sent large amounts of donations over to Africa to save the hungry, but ignore the plight of a suffering relative or neighbor. How ironic.

Singapore is a relatively wealthier country in comparison. But there are people amongst us that need our help. 

Before we even consider the plight of countries in need, we need to first see to the needs to our people. Ignorance is not forgiven. We have to be cognizant of the broken and needy. 

It is not the work of a few individuals. It is a community that moves society. Actions speak volumes after all. 

Anyway. Just a penny of my thoughts.

Reminiscing good old times…

Found a picture that I took with Gary when we were in year 1.

Coincidentally, we are in the same company for internship. 

Time simply flies pass subtly. Haha. Just being sentimental…

Missing those times of innocence.

Not emo.

Not sad.

Just a melancholic thing.

M. A. G. aka S. H. E.

Fun moments during breakout sessions at work.

Yea… thats merely some. 

To be continued…

Living in a much Smaller World.

Communication enhancements has contributed to the world wide effect of globalization. Yes. Globalization. 

With the world wide web, I am no further to any countries out there than my classmates who sat beside me in class. The internet has open our eyes to cultures and religions of people all around the world. In the past, that would have taken us more than a lifetime to acquire the knowledge. It seems like I am living in a relatively smaller world as days goes by. Technology has made globalization feasible. It hit us, mould us, influence us in the most subtle way.

Ironically for me, living in a small island with internet access is a bliss. Internet helps me extend my reach to places I’ve never been before and would take a lifetime to roam places of interest when I could do so in the comfort of my snug, cozy dwelling. Others have gone before me, traveling the world, journalist (agents/minions of the internet. haha) who provides all I need to know. On the flip-side, I may never get the satisfaction of living the world I see through that box of information (Or rather, no longer a box since such designs for computers are obsolete).

One issue we discussed in class is that globalization helps to reduce racial tensions and bonds us by our interest. In my opinion, that is true to a certain extent. It is true only if people uses the internet to study the culture and practices of another race with the intention of developing understand and racial tolerance. Most of the time, I see racial discriminative comments spewing all over. We live in a much smaller world, we are connected with six degrees of friends. We see conflicts and quarrels on forums, “hate” sites are set up daily, and those who have internet have access to it. Which makes it doubly scary as information travels in a flick of an eyelash. A minor mistake/step you take might make you famous/infamous overnight.

In any case, I still enjoy my rights to the internet, making friends via social network, butting in a forum or two, going to places I would never go, exploiting the internet. The World is getting Smaller (not literally), we are connected in a closer manner, however, there is a flip-side to everything. Just like a star that is getting smaller, it is a sign that it will eventually implode (if not explode). If you get what I mean, with all the issues that comes with globalization…

How to end this… lets make the world a better place

My Robotic Hands.

My future companions?… Social Machines! Seems like I’ve been mechanized.

The introduction of social media has revolutionized my life. Instead of the conventional way of meeting up to keep in contact, the social media has provided us an avenue to stay in touch. Such efficiency enables us to stay in touch with more people effectively, even though we may be living on different borders of the world. It kinda bridges the gap.  Since then, I’ve been spending a whole lot of my time in front of the computer facebooking, twittering and blogging.

Alternatively, I can spend my time snail mailing and meeting up friends for coffee or tea, which in my opinion, adds a personal touch to relationships. But most of the time, we don’t have the luxury of time. Therefore, we have created a virtual world through social networking.

But how has social machines been detrimental to us?

Yup. And this is what I learned in tutorial. Its called continuous partial attention. Given that we have the liberty to used our handphones, computers and other electronic gadgets in school, we are often distracted in lectures. While taking in the lecture, we are reading through our friend’s tweets and updating facebook status. Can we really absorb 100% of all that is going on around us? 

Richard Kadrey quoted from Social technologist Linda Stone in an article about continuous partial attention.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/jamais-cascio/open-future/continuous-partial-empathy

It mentions that though we may pay ongoing attention to several inputs, we can only provide limited degrees of attention to each. Her strategy to overcome is to manage our attention well. We pay more attention to what is needed. More about the difference of continuous partial attention and multi-tasking is made known in the below link.

http://www.lindastone.net/

The next point I am going to make, we are all under the influence of continuous computing.

1) Gadgets that allows us to access internet are so cheap.

2) Internet access is so readily available.

3) The information we can source from the net is so vast.

There is no stop to this revolution.  I am already partially mechanized!

And throughout vast information on the internet we can pull from, we have google reader and other bookmarking websites such as delicious.com to help us sort through the clutter. How convenient…

Like what was mentioned in class, social media serves as a mean to enhance communication. Now that it has been infused into our lives, I can’t imagine living a day without my social machines.

Having fun in class…

 

Spastic faces…thats life at times

The powerpuff girls and…me

Haha…getting puff up eh.

Erm…

Where is Bubbles?

 

I m dozing off…now…

Salute to the legendary Hero.

Paying tribute to the King of Pop just like everyone else is doing. Just got back from the movie “This is it”. Well I am not actually a fan of MJ when he was alive, but I started loving his music after his death. Kinda ironic, he became even more famous after his dead. I guess people are never appreciative until they lose it huh.

My only childhood memories of him was a game I played in “SEGA”. Yeah the ancient Play Station. He plays the hero that goes around flaunting his dance moves and all his enemies will drop dead. Ah ha. How fun is that…

Jokes aside. Nevertheless, he is a hero to thousands and millions. His songs and dance brought about revolution to the entertainment world in his times…well when was it? It doesn’t matter. Though I’ve heard stuffs that were detrimental to his reputation, I am still a fan of his. People should just learn to embrace his talent and good works.

Throughout the movie, his emphasis on excellence is consistent. He knows his songs, the beat to it and exactly how he wants it to sound. Including the effects and operations, he is so detailed. Everything seems so perfect. I mean… he definitely earned the respect and awe of millions hands down. Learning point: Details Determines Destiny. 3Ds that will aid us in this 3D world.

Well. Good things always come to an end. A toast to the king of pop, wherever he is now. LOL.

Impacting lives through social networking.

A song that I can’t cease listening to…

They are simply awesome. Totally blown away.

On top of that. They have a total of close to 9600 subscribers to their channel. Just by their love for music… they have created an online community of fans. Talk about influence. Enjoy.

A mark of a change.

Howdy! I am 10 minutes early today! As were ALL my classmates. After the “wake up call” on Monday, I guess we are all finally awake. And for good. I guess miracles do happen.

We had Pat Law from ogilvy 360 degrees as our guest lecturer today. She is so awesome and cool from her outfit to her composure. Like a PRO! And the best part is that she was from SP too, totally relatable. Her lecture was informative, touching on topics on how to use the net to source for information, opening up our minds to a whole new dimension of the prowess of  the world wide web.

For example, google reader increases our blog reading efficiency and therefore, more productive. At the same time, we might even discover new blogs. Haha. So guys, there is no point to keep your blogs “safe”, it will get exposed anyway! one way or the other. So…watch what you post! This avenue to gather information is really a powerful tool. It helps us sift out what we really need.

Moving on. Social tracking… is simply scary. Your activities online can be tracked by… who knows who. Jake, from Singapore manhunt has to pay a price for his nude pictures folly he made years back. Consequence was guilt and shame (Well it wasn’t exactly his activities online). But what was posted online years back is still available somehow even if deleted. Your online activities (whatever info about you that goes out into the net) today may either built up your resume or simply jeopardize your job opportunities and reputation (if you ever get reputable, say… a minister?) in future. Greatest lesson learnt – Watch what you do online. The computer screen is not a protection of your identity.

Then moving on to twitter! And my question was… YOU CAN TRACK MY PROGRESS ON TWITTER TOO?! Well… I am not surprise anymore. Chill. Haha. I guess after all the lectures, nothing scares us anymore. My progress on twitter has not been impressive, i just have to tweet more, get more active eh.

www.twitalyzer.com and www.tweetica.com. Go try it!

Have fun!

Monday Blues…

Groggy. Just discovered the growth of my wisdom tooth today. It’s like, finally! And it hurts. 

Had a bad start for a Monday. Ah ha. My bad. Totally forgot about my presentation. Wasted everyone’s time, it sucks big time. Speak volumes of my character and attitude. A valuable lesson to behold. Get over it dude! Anyway, Sorry guys:)

Was sitting in tutorial totally caught up in the self reproaching state when Mai and Hazwan’s presentation on virtual and augmented reality jolted me off my self condemning train of thoughts. What was once deemed impossible has been made possible. Technology seems to have advanced in leaps and bounds. 

I would like to assume that youths these days (let’s scale it down to the context of…say Singapore) are rather tech savvy, but after the introduction to augmented reality I see in other countries, I would consider myself relatively backward. Man… how are we ever gonna catch up with this bullet train of advancement? 

Augmented Reality adds a dimension to Reality. In a sense, it is beneficial for us as it gives us easy access to information all around us. Instantaneous! The device is able to track all that is around you and give you a short synopsis of it, it maybe a book, an item and even human beings! The efficiency in gathering information is a plus point. 

However, there is a down side to it.  I wouldn’t like the part where information of human beings are tracked and exposed/revealed based on their activities online, instantaneously. You don’t even get to know people for yourself. You will judge base on what the computer tells you about him/her. 

We are getting more and more reliant on technology aren’t we? Just as thought, if we have the capability to think and analyze, what damage would it cause to humanity if the entire world is computerized, where the computers does the conventional brainwork instead of you?