Why Would I Write

  • Photography doesn’t come naturally/slight updates

    If there’s one thing I don’t do a lot of with my smartphone, it’s taking photographs. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you’ll notice that I hardly upload photographs. However, I am tagged in plenty of them.

    For some reason, the act of lifting my phone up to shoot a photograph doesn’t feel natural to me. My friends and most people I know don’t seem to have that problem. To them, shooting their food, their surroundings or people they see seems instinctual. On the other hand, I have to think – what am I shooting this photograph for? why am I taking a picture?

    Especially selfies. Maybe it’s from fear of embarrassment, or just lack of self-confidence, but I cringe at the thought of taking them in public. At home, in the comfort of my room, I’m fine with that. But in public, no way! Unless I’m in a remarkable location or I can do it inconspicuously, I rarely do it. I don’t know why. I have no problems posing for photographs or being in them, but when I’m the one holding the camera… *shudders*

    In other news, I’m back! After a few weeks of not blogging, I hope I’ll have plenty of things to say in the coming weeks – at least until the next Big Bad Wolf sale, which will be at the end of February in Malacca.

    Some updates:
    – Rocket League is awesome. Probably the best online game I’ve played next to Dota 2. If you’re looking for a fun way to relieve stress online, be sure to check it out. It goes on sale quite often, so you can pick it up for cheap.
    – MUD is still fun. I recently got back into Realms of Hell, and while I don’t expect to spend a lot of time on it, it’s been a fun experience getting back into the grind. Maybe this time I’ll get further than I did previously! Mudding on your phone is actually quite enjoyable too.
    – CNY is here, and I’m going to be on a week-long break (hooray!). I’ll use the time to catch up on my Python and Science of Happiness classes. Also, maybe grind some MMR.
    – Deadpool is coming soon, I’m looking forward to that. And Valentine’s Day too. It’ll be my second one with Milin!
    – Pentimento is the best band I’ve discovered this year (so far). Holy shit, these guys are amazing. Check out Sink or Swim below:

  • Happiness Is…

    So for those of you not in the know, I’ve been taking a lot of online courses recently. Last year I did a couple of English courses and The Science of Everyday Thinking. I also took Spanish but dropped it because I found it incredibly difficult – I’ll probably pick it up again one day.

    Anyway, this year I’ve enrolled for a bunch of new courses as well – another English writing course, Python and one which I started today, The Science of Happiness. I had no idea what to expect when I signed up for it. The course description intrigued me so I just clicked sign up. I had nothing to lose anyway. I’m the kind of guy who believes that it’s better to spread joy than misery (though my song lyrics don’t seem to reflect that kek) so I was very interested to find out more about happiness.
    (more…)

  • Sex in tech

    Apple does a lot of things I don’t agree with, but there’s one thing I think they’re brilliant at: not using sex to sell their products. As far as I can remember, Apple has never used any sexy ladies to market their products. Their ads, while sometimes ridiculous, are clean and wholesome. But what’s important is that they focus on their products. And when there’s a plethora of parodies available online, you know they’re doing something right.

    At launch events, they don’t have sexy women parading around holding their devices. Instead, they have old men on stage talking about what’s good and new about their devices.

    The lack of sexy women holding their devices allows consumers and the media to focus on what’s important – the products that they are selling. Not the scantily clad women holding them. Sure, you don’t see media writing about the women, but on social media and event photographs – they’re there. If they’re not the focus of the launch event, then why hire them in the first place?

    Also, what are sexy women holding gadgets supposed to achieve? Today’s tech world is pretty different from what it was like many years ago. There’s no need to cater to basement-dwelling mouth-breathing neckbeards who dream of being in the company of such women – technology is now embraced by everybody.

    Sure, sex sells. It’s been proven. Evocative imagery draws attention. But they’re irrelevant when it comes to technology. Sexy women for alcohol, fashion and beauty products makes sense, but tech? Unless they’re selling high-tech sex toys, I don’t see the connection.

    I’m not against using sexy women to sell tech – people should be able to do whatever they want to. I’m just questioning the decision to do so. Never have I seen a device being used/held by a hot girl and thought to myself ‘oh shit, I need to own that product!’.