The Other Side of Life

Last week (and today) is an interesting experience for me. Two people that I know, even though not so closely in one case and only through music in the other, passed away in a young age. One is Pierre, the other is Reuben Kee.

Respective blogs and articles are here:

1. For Pierre: http://www.inmemoryofpicant.blogspot.com/ (blog); http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/22506 (article)
   
2. For Reuben Kee: http://www.vgfrequency.com/?p=341 (blog); http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_180302.html (article)

The scary thing about last week's experience is that I do not know how to react to the news. Certainly there is shock, mainly because I have a connection to these people. I want to somehow show my appreciation to these connections; and reality hits hard that there is only limited way for me to do so. The Internet does connect people, but somehow it feels lacking for such news.

I do not know much about Pierre, so I can only offer my condolences to his family and friends.
For Reuben, I do know some of his music and I like some of them. I can only let the world know what his music:

• OC Remix: http://www.ocremix.org/remixer/reubenkee/
• Anime Remix: http://www.animeremix.org/remixer/23/

And the communities's tribute to him:

• OC Remix: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13286
  
• Anime Remix: http://www.animeremix.org/animix_forums/viewtopic.php?id=1956
  

Rest in Peace, Pierre and Reuben.

Book Titles

There is a thread in Reddit to list book titles. Here is what I choose in a very biased manner:

• A Clockwork Orange
• Brave New World
• Enders Game
• The Selfish Gene
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Neuromancer
• In the Beginning...was the Command Line

Other than that, guess I'd mention these to hint what is influencing me at the moment:

• Cry Engine demo was out early this week. Very demanding about GPU; but gorgeous graphics... Lovely tropical island look & amazing sea water.
• There will be stage building feature in Super Smash Bros Brawl (let's abbrev. it as SSB Brawl). Apparently there were earlier SSB 64 and SSB Melee. Some early pro gamer impression from the payable demo is that Brawl is completely different from Melee. (Sonic's in Brawl, btw.)
• Drawing can be seen as an organized activity to put what I see in my mind onto paper. Sometimes I feel it can almost be mechanized (put into a deterministic algorithm); but then even scratching a pencil line is ambiguous. Why 65.2937492873498237498 degrees instead of, say 65.33948290482340234980 degrees? Why 23.2348982309480 mm line instead of 25.2349239048209 mm one?
• Painting is somewhat similar. Only I can think in terms of patches instead of "blocks".
• Some people with too much time in their hands actually wrote a compiler for LOLcode. Sure LOLcats are fun; but writing a compiler for LOLcode seems rather extreme, no?
• Whoever says Perl scripting is dead needs to experience moar Perl. Many, many extensions on CPAN; some with really helpful manual.
• I found an evidence today that people do seem to agree that wisdom and intelligence/genius are mutually exclusive after certain threshold. Example: Kurt Godel is a genius, but he is certainly not wise. My colleague, Ian, told me a quotation from ADnD (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons): "When it rains, intelligence tells you that it is water falling from the sky; wisdom tells you to take cover."

(Edited on 5 March 2015)
From the book list, I have read these:

• A Clockwork Orange
• Enders Game (highly recommended; also "Now a Major Motion Picture!")
• Neuromancer
• In the Beginning...was the Command Line