ALL CAPS RAGE!

ACT proctor calls time early

Ok, so I was taking the ACT today, and the proctor called time three minutes early during the English section. I know that three minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you got 75 questions and are given only 45 minutes to finish them all, three minutes can be as much as five questions. FIVE QUESTIONS!!! Luckily I finished literally seconds before time was called, but I still didn’t get to check my work.

And that’s not all the mistake that the proctor made. During the science reasoning section, he told us “One minutes left.” And then, after like 20 seconds, he corrected “Oh wait, you guys still have two minutes.” I just wanted to slap him. When he said “one minute left.” I took him seriously, because I forgot to look at the time when we started, and started guessing on the remaining questions (there were 5 or 6). But when I realized that I still have another two minutes, I knew I was screwed. He disrupted my entire thought process, and telling me that I had two minutes left is not enough time for me to recover all the lost questions that I could have gotten right.

Damn I hate that proctor.

Technology and our lives

            Consider the computer in its early days. It was bulky, hard to use, and prone to crashes. Now image it sitting side by side with a modern day computer. The differences are startling. For one, the screen has gotten bigger; there is a graphic user interface, as opposed to the command line, and the modern day computer is much much smaller in size.

Humans are known for being good with tools, so it no surprise that we become more and more comfortable with technology. But was we before more comfortable with them, we become less aware of how they work. Most people using technology has little to no idea of how it actually works. They have contributed neither financially nor mentally toward its development, but instead of being humbled by its ingenuity, we often become too demanding of what it should be able to do. Televisions need to be bigger, computer needs to be faster yet smaller, cell phones need to be more portable yet retain the ability to take photos, surf the internet, and even play movies.

For children born in the last twenty years, technological marvels seem like the wind blowing outside: something that is merely a part of the universe. Younger generations do not seem capable of conceiving life without the modern conveniences. They do not appreciate the unprecedented technology that is in their procession, rather, they complain about the ways in which it fails to live up to ideal expectations.

“The picture that I took with my phone is too pixelated.” “It takes too long for the interactive map to display on my GPS.” “This movie stream is taking forever to load.” “My video camera at home does not allow me to program it form my computer at work.”

It seems that we are never satisfied. And we aren’t. Our complaints motivate engineers to constantly refine their products. After all, the root of our notion is “there must be a better way” and that someone, somewhere out there, is working to solve this particular problem.

The dangerous extension of this mindset is its effect on our outlook in solving larger problems. Problems like global warming and climate change that could quickly render this earth in hospitable.

The solution? If you ask, most people would say that that the solution resides in creating more efficient versions of our current technology, and devising some form of alternative energy, blindly confident that someone, somewhere out there is working on it. This blind confidence allows for most people to continue their live guiltless. In a culture completely spoiled by the idea that technology can achieve whatever it is tasked to perform, the idea that a global climate crisis may be beyond the reach of a clever technological solution is unthinkable.

As a result, the human race will continue with the status quo and, ultimately, blame technology when problems arise.

Education in China

            People like us who live in North America have no idea how strict, competitive, and unforgiving the educational system in China really is. Here in North America, we receive a free education from grade 1 to 12. And after we finish high school, we do whatever we like, such as getting a higher education or join the work force. Here in North America, we can get a job even if we do not have a higher education.  And we can work our way up from anywhere; we can climb the social ladder and achieve the American dream.

            But in China, things are completely different. Even though high school education is mandatory, its cost is not covered by the government. Many school claim it will provide the education for free, but all of them will end up charging the tuition anyway.

            First, in order to get into any high school, everyone has to take a standardized test at the end of their middle school year. How well they did on the test will determine whether a high school will accept them. This is a lot like applying for universities. But of course, there are ways to get into a high school if the score is too low, also known as “taking the back door”. Many parents will use their “connections” with the official making the admission decision. Another way is to get friendly with the teachers at the school, and have them pull some of their strings. And, of course, money can always buy one’s way into a school of choice.

            Within each school is a hierarchy system. At the top are the sons and daughters of rich parents, and occasionally, a true generous, which would all be put into a class that “guarantee” admission into the top universities. A step below them are the normal people, who got accepted by their own effort. Then, at the very bottom, are the trouble makers. They don’t pay attention in class, don’t do homework, and rarely make any effort to change. They are despised by everyone above them. The general trend in china is that no one wants to help the kids who are struggling with classwork, not even the teachers. Once a kid has been labeled as “bad”, his future might as well be over.

            And the thing is, all the kids get forced into after school enrichment programs that make the smarter kids smarter and the dumber kids dumber. This is like a vicious cycle that makes the rich kids more successful and the poorer kids struggle.

            Eventually all everyone either suffer through four years of high school or breeze through those same four years, and they arrive at the threshold for universities. Virtually the same thing repeat itself after four years, and the same kids are still either struggling or reaching new highs.

            How well one will fare with the educational system in china is mostly determined by how much money one’s parents have. The educational process in the west would seem ridiculous in their minds.

Botting Vs. Playing legit on Runescape

Whenever I play runescape, I see bots everywhere. They are fishing, cutting all the yew trees, mining all the runite ores, and so on. It is very annoying. Whenever I tries to train any of my skills, all of the areas are over crowded with bots.

When I was still a noob, I felt that botting is cheating, that all botters are just lazy people who want the reward of a high level, but don't want to work for it. But all that changed when I got higher levels. Leveling up became harder and harder to do. The amount of experience required to level up seemed to grow exponentially. It would take weeks, some times even months to raise just one level. Playing the game seemed like work. I had to do a simple task that needed to be repeated hundreds of thousands of times with little variation in order to level up.

Then I realized. The the game was trying to suck me in, make me spend more and more time playing it, so that Jagex can make more money. The rewards at the highest level is extremely tempting, and all Jagex is doing is trying to get you to play a little longer so that you could unlock some new area or a new cape. Jagex are the ones who are truly evil. If they really wanted to get rid of the botters, they could have done so, but because there are member botters who pay the monthly subscription fee, they can't ban every single one of them. The only thing that Jagex cares about is the money from the monthly subscription.

Another reason that banning all the botters would not be possible is because that botters has existed on Runescape for such a long time that it is an integral part of the game. If all the botters were all banned, the prices for everything would sky rocket. Everyday comsumable commodities such as food, runes, arrows, and potions would become costly very quickly. This can be seen after the second mass ban of botters in 2008. The price of lobsters rose as high as 400 each, runes became so expensive that casting high level alcamy, a spell that usually made a profit, became as expensive as other methods of power leveling. The entire runescape economy would crash, and something similar to the great depression that happened in the 1930s would occur in runescape.

Now, I am a regular botter. Botting allows me to free of the clutch of the game. I can be doing other things, more productive things while my character is grinding at some repetitive task.

And don't we all know, there is a bot for every game. If there a way of human doing it, a computer program can do it better, if it is written well. Best of all, computers are the best at doing repetitive things over and over again.

Hello World

Hello world.

This blog will be about random things that comes to my mind, or that I feel I need to write about.
Some of the things here will be my opinion, others, just there...
Hopefully I'll get some fun stuff going.
This is my first blog. I hope it will be a successful one.