First taste of Nietzsche! Reading a Penguin compiled summary of his works. What can I say? He's an egotistical bastard. I suppose that for his time, what he proposed was indeed unconventional and genius level, but skeptics like him have become somewhat a dime a dozen. I wonder if he would have been happy. Although Science is still bound to it's objectives as tightly as when he proposed changes, and there are still stuffy religions, I must say his ideals of a somewhat more "enlightened" humanity, with less trust for each other and more awareness of the limits of their own observational abiility are perhaps more so realised today than in the last century. I don't think he would be. Humans are still as stupid as ever. In any case, his ego probably wouldn't be able to take the fact that the anthropic principle is studied as a 'science'...

You will notice, of course, that the website looks different. The old name, 'Imploded Overexposure' has been scrapped. Instead, I have changed the name to 'Shades of Gray'... Ask of me, and you shall recieve! Or something like that. Kudos to Gary for the suggestion, and for pointing out my sad lack in advertising instinct. Perhaps 'Imploded Exposure' IS a tad too difficult to remember for the common, non-physics majoring, non-photoshop-maniacal student... Hehehe... who says I can't go the Nietzsche way?

I have beedn alerted to the fact that the spelling on this weblog is atrocious! Evidently I need to take some classes or type slower. Ah well. How many mistakes can YOLU find? Heh. Am much too lazy to go back and edit all previous entries. I suppose the mistakes are there to stay.

I want a holiday. The stupid magazine, posters and other things are all driving me nuts. I want to go somewhere and just sit artound enjoying the breeze. Preferably outside singapore, since there has been no breeze to enjoy lately. The pervasive heat leaves me in a permanent state of sweatiness, and my keyboard pad is becoming rather sticky from overcontact with my clammy hands... But I have no money, need to find work, and have too many things to do... a holiday is about as likely as malaria (ie. quite unlikely). Have been considering just asking a few friends out to East Coast to sit around and look at the sky. I used to like that. Perhaps I still will.

Haven't been reading much, spending too much time in front of the tube lately watching rather sad shows. I've been thinking of adding some kind of appreciation page to this website, but I realise I appreciate very little. Some fan site? I don't think so. Critic? Too lazy. Picures of my holidays? Egad.

My mind has been somewhat preoccupied this semester, I know... bear with me and I'll try to make it more interesting eventually...

No updates in a while because I was enjoying myself at chalet for a few days before this. Played some mahjong and bridge, but my need to touch the tiles is not sated! I need more excitement from guessing based on incomplete information and my pathetic appreciation of probability! Plus winning.

Stupid stupid Alex. I've let things drag on too long... some things just weren't meant to be, I suppose. I've never really considered myself romantic, but I suppose now it's a human trait about as difficult to get rid of as... well, humanity... 'You're inhumane!' is a relativistic term, as when compared to other humans' average humanitarian standards. Hmmm... Like my Philo lecturer used to say, I'm making it sound a lot more difficult than it really is... Heuristics are seldom thought out?

The journal entries are coming less frequently, but have become longer. Am I that kind of person? All or nothing? Heh. Another seemingly extremist view, actually relativistic. I doubt I could give absolutely 'all' or 'nothing'...

I've been giving some thought to human relationships recently, and, as usual, given up. I believe all of us live with moral standards that fluctuate when applied to different people. What constitutes betrayal for one is justified when applied to his enemy. What absolute values are there? Or is it like engineering standards, which start out ambiguoug and end up with a common consensus based on jockeying for power among the key players? I'm agnostic not because I really believe there can never be a correct answer, but only because I just don't know what to trust and so I choose to accept nothing. None of the religions seem very absolute to me, and the law is about as flaky as wafer. Atheism is also rather strange, in it's constant denial of something that doesn't exist (1 really stupid argument that atheists are satanists I read somewhere - why would they bother to attack something that doesn't exist? Therefore God must and atheists must be satanists) And the majority of humans are stupid; I don't want to accept their belief systems as absolute. So? My options? Become a key player and start jockeying for authority? Or just give up and accept something like Christianity? Will I be happy? All or nothing?

Should I let myself find happiness?

I'm going through website designs like water. Nothing really seems to fit anymore and I keep trying to find something with a little bit more... umph... and as usual, interest is runnning out. Looks like I may have to find a new hobby soon.

Club affairs all dark and ominous. Nuff said. Almost finishing with my CompLink and posters. I realise, with much dismay that the only thing about my design capability that has improved is my ability to criticise. Nothing seems good anymore. Sigh. Plus just looking "nice" isn't good enough. Resorting to pseudo-meaningful catch phrases to fool those foolish enough to fall for them. Idiots.

Bad mood mostly these days, due to the awful weather. It was lovely in the beginning, when the weather warmed up and blue skies reappeared. But now the blue skies look malevolent without a cloud in sight. I want to go swimming, but I'm rather afraid of baking. Plus inner inertia is greater.

Looking for some kind of work, although with club commitments nowadays I can't do too much. A friend asked me if I wanted to sell printers at a PC show. Ah well. A new experience, at least. And I need the cash. But oh, the horror! I thought I would never go into sales...

Whew! Updated the look of the site by just pasting a new banner and changing the layout a bit. Thanks to Gary for providing me with these beautiful overexposed shots. Well, okay, they're not overexposed, they're slow-shutter pictures. Same thing. Right? Plan to work a bit more, depending on how much time I have. These days time seems to be becoming more precious.

Not much to update, since most of my days have been spent trying to enjoy myself. Worked on new poster and t-shirt designs, but I still feel really sucky at it, you know? Sigh... perhaps that's why I spend so much time on it... because it's a difficult thing to do... Have to rush out some banner designs too, though I think that should be quite okay, since banners, being so large and painted have a relatively small scope to work within.

Read Terry Pratchett again, despite having thought to have sworn off fiction. Couldn't help myself. His books are so nice and handy to read, can off one within 5 hours, plus there's the upside of them being really metaphysical sometimes. Although mostly it's a wierd kind of Practicality, which probably does little good to the aspiring philosopher.

I need to get out more.

What a long time without updates. As usual. Getting used to it, which may not be a good thing... Ah well. A lot has happened since the last update, too. Where shall I start?

On the acadaemic front, I flunked a module this semester. Some people tell me I won't know till I've gotten my results, but frankly, I think it's all over for this one... It's more of a psychological failure than anything else, because I FEEL I've failed this module. I barely understood the concepts in it, and didn't learn much new. Oh, sorry, the module in question being Statistical Physics. Ah well. It was sacrificed for a good cause. My Maths and other subjects should have had some relief.

I got elected Chairperson for the next committee of my club, Science CBLC... a job I wasn't hoping to get... because of this I won't be able to work on my design stuff as much... plus I never liked all this leadership nonsense anyway...

Website revamp coming up! I have given up on hard coding everything... using HTML-kit now and some layout programs... hopefully this will improve the look of this place. Hell, it's been a while since I last did anything.

Time, time... more updates another time...