Chatter Of The Squirrel

Book: Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein was a very prolific sci-fi writer. There are still many books on my To-Read list, but I can only work through them at a very limited pace. His stories can’t be devoured in rapid succession.

I managed to get hold of the audio version that was professionally narrated. Note: many old books are not commercially made into audiobooks. But in some libraries, volunteers will tape record books for the blind. It’s an admirable effort. But it’s also agonising trying to listen through a book read by a mumbling southern belle who stumbles frequently over polysyllabic words.

Anyways… This is the story of Lazarus Long, oldest man alive. This story follows the events in Methusaleh’s Children, and the character recurs again in some of Heinlein’s other books.

Lazarus is several millenia old. A product of many generations of eugenics breeding to develop the trait of longevity, and borned some time before the First World War. Way too much time has passed, and he has tired of living. He rejects rejuvenation and intends to return to one of the planets that he held some nostalgia, and finally pass into oblivion.

But he is rescued by one of his kins, who identified who he is, and saves him. His kins reveres him as sage and deeply wish to have the benefit of his aged wisdom. But Lazarus has lived through too many lifetimes and will only agree to rejuvenate if they can find him a challenge that he has not already done.

What follows are several stories within stories, as he recounted a story about constructive laziness, an orphan girl he once adopted until she was old enough to be his wife, a pair of slaves he emancipated, and finally the challenge he asked for. His kin found a way for him to travel back in time, and the first place in history he wanted to visit was his own past, to meet his grandfather and to fall in love with his own mother.

Such is your typical Heinlein novel. He creates

1. a compelling hero;
2. several intelligent, strong, and desirable women;
3. a fascinating future history with creative social commentary;
4. a really original plot point;
5. evangelises open love;
6. peppers it generously with his original proverbs and quotable quotes;
7. then suddenly takes you somewhere unexpected, and … strange…

It’s always enjoyable. But if you read several novels in a row, you really can’t tell one character from another. There’s often the same aged and wise patron who will teach you things like “Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” There’s often a Sir Percival, human avatar of chivalry. Then one or more young, nubile nuclear-physicist / geneticist / android-spy who loves to do housework in a clothing-optional environment.

It sounds silly when I distill it down like this. But in every book, there’ll always be bits that I’ll enjoy immensely.

“Work is not an end in itself; there must always be time enough for love.”  —Robert A. Heinlein—

Book: Worst Book Ever

Mind. Damage.

This is possibly the worst book I’ve EVER seen~!  And it retails on Amazon for US$135. After discount. Thank goodness for the discount. Without it, this book would cost as much as my mortgage payment…

You have GOT to read some sample chapters. The entire books is written in ALL CAPS!!

It’s unbelieveable~!  The book obviously has never been editted.  Either no editor will touch it, or she is under some delusional belief that she’s the mouthpiece of a higher power, and thus her words is scripture and thus may not be amended by mortal hands.

This is the Product Description on Amazon.

THIS IS A HOLYSPIRIT MANUSCRIPT BOOK: WHEN YOU BUY THIS BOOK YOU WILL BE READING A HOLYSPIRIT DIRECTED BOOK FROM GOD; & *CHRIST JESUS. THIS BOOK IS GODS HOLYSPIRIT VOICE: THE CALL FOR ALL CHRISTIANS & CHURCHES TO REPENT FROM ALL THEIR SINS: EVEN FROM FALSE CHRIST TEACHINGS. BIRTH CONTROL SINS HAVE CURSE THE CHURCH WITH SPIRITUAL WHOREDOM & FALSE WORSHIP. RESULTING IN THE PERSECUTIONS: AGAINST THE HOLY PEOPLE. THIS BOOK MAY BE REVISED: BECAUSE OF COMPUTER DICTATORS: MANY WORDS IN THIS BOOK: MADE HAVE BEEN CHANGED: TO>>DISCREDIT: THE AUTHOR. BUT IN TRUTH: I AM A HOLYSPIRIT CHOSEN ANOINTED DISCIPLE FOR GOD & CHRIST JESUS. EVEN FOR JEWS, MUSLIMS & GENTILE SINNERS. MANY PEOPLE WILL LEARN HOW TO> BECOME REAL BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN: THROUGH THIS HOLYSPIRIT BOOK & THROUGH THE PROTECTION & SUPPORT OF MY HOLYSPIRIT LIFE!! JOHN 3 & 15. ALL NATIONS WILL OVER COME THE SINS OF BIRTH CONTROL.

The rest of the book also reads the same way. With misspellings, atrocious grammar, grandiosity, and ALL CAPS!

This is just a terrible embarassment and I am having difficulties articulating my thoughts on this matter.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

WarMachine: Free for All Battle

Haven’t organised an event in ages and ages cos very few players seem to be interested. But I can’t let the game roll over and die like that. Also, been getting nagged by Wolf.

To make an eventful day, I would need something like 8 or so players. And I’m very skeptical about getting that many. Also, in memories past, multi-player games were the most memorable but games drag when players take too long to make a move. I had started a project to make a chessclock, but that ran into some trouble: ie my lousy soldering skillz.

But lately, Daiso opened at The Curve, and they sold tiny kitchen timers for RM 5. Bargain! I bought one to test, but they ran out of stock when I went back for more. >.< Waited months before there was a new shipment and I grabbed 10 of them. Now I can control the pace, and create a new format of games…

6 attendees showed up. So I came up with an unusual scenario… 4 players will deploy from the 4 corners. The remaining 2 players will deploy in the middle, and will be allied with each other for 1 hr. Everyone gets 30min on their timer. Out of time, means no more activations.

By some freak roll of the dice, the two brothers Khairul’s Kreoss and Arzmi’s Haley ended up in the middle. A circumstance that they’ll abuse during the course of the game -__-

Everyone started to move towards the centre. But the brothers turtled in behind Trencher smoke and Temporal Barrier.

Around the second turn, Geoffrey’s Darius noticed Alvin’s Madrak was trying to flank him so he diverted his line of attack and met the charge of trolls. Jefri’s swift Vayl was the first to get engaged with the turtles in the middle. Kuok’s Butcher lumbers along slowly, painfully, complaining all the while.

Darius’s Centurions poked trolls, but can’t hit their DEF 16. Madrak’s Champions hit, but can’t penetrate Centurion armour. The blood thirsty Butcher started pussy-footing around the edge of the battles. And only the fool-hardy Everblight was engaged in battle with 2 superior forces in the centre.

Eventually, Darius and Madrak got tired of their futile face-off, and agreed to a truce. Madrak allowed Darius to withdraw unharmed. But when Darius started pouncing on prey that Madrak hamstrung, that cheesed off the volatile troll. On his turn, he directed a charge at Darius’ exposed rear-end and decimated him with a few concerted strikes. Darius is going to have trust issues henceforth after this betrayal…

Everblight was getting worn down and making limited progress.

Haley turned her back and started delivering points to Kreoss. As a result of this shenanigan, Kreoss was catapulted to an overwhelming lead of 23pts.

And there’s Butcher. Pussy footing around the edge of battle until he saw the Temporal Barrier coming down. By this time, everyone’s almost out of time, and Butcher was still sitting on 19 minutes.

The blood bath begins.

The mad Khadoran started the end game with 2 points, and proceeded to cleave his way to 24pts and victory.

For a horrible tactician with ADD, the Butcher seems to win quite a number of tournaments through sheer persistence.

Photography: Class at Foguanshan

So I went to check out the photography class that Por was bugging me to attend. It’s held at a lecture hall at a Buddhist society building in SS3. Wasn’t as easy to find as I had thought, but managed to get there before the class started.

It’s a small group of 10+ young adults, and the teacher shoots with Canon. I had joined them for a shoot at Orchid Park last week, and today we’re reviewing our results.

I had one good picture of a purple dragonfly, and was hard put to find 4 other pictures to share. Spent the bulk of my time trying to shoot some bees that morning but that was such a waste of effort, other than being a lesson in the futility of such an exercise.

Saw some really nice pictures taken by the rest of the class. Not too pleased to see myself used as the subject for one of the pics. But learnt a fair bit about composition from the REST of the class.

My pics were more well received than I expected. My purple dragonfly was a keeper, certainly. Ideally the head shouldn’t be covered by its wing. But some of my other pics could be improved with some cropping. When I find a subject, I probably should spend more effort inspecting the various elements of the picture and try to complete the picture I want before moving on. But then, concentrating too much effort in one place, I might miss out on other exciting things, like that dragonfly.

I think such critique and sharing is essential to the creative process. Some things can’t be learnt in isolation. Especially when you’re trying to create something pleasing to other people, you gotta learn what other people like / dislike.

Photography: Monsters at Mid-Valley

Monsters have taken over MidValley, and the boss just had a brainstorm…

Wasn’t possible to get a perfect exposure of the monster and still have the lamp above its head to be clearly distinguishable.

So I took 5 bracketed shots, from +/- 4EV. Then used software to combine the 5 shots together to get more contrast.

First I tried out Photoshop CS4 to create the HDR (high dynamic range) picture. Didn’t look good. The lamp was still washed out and I wasn’t sure how to adjust the tone graph to make it look the way I wanted.

Then I tried out Photomatix Pro 3, (much easier to use), and I got this picture.

I’ll appreciate ideas on how to get rid of that stupid string across the monster’s face.

EDIT: Got rid of the silly string with PS Clone and Healing Brush.