Woohoo!
A concise version of my 12 000-word honours thesis is finally published in an international journal!
I would like to thank my mentor, Nicholas, who made a substantial contribution to the post-thesis work. Without him taking over the drafting of manuscript and responding to the peer reviewers and journal editor for the past one year, the successful publication of the article would not have been possible.
I had this conversation with an “AI (artificial intelligence) with some Actual intelligence” called
.
.
So here’s the full transcript of the conversation we had:
Cleverbot conversation QX00383536
Is this bot clever?
Find out at http://www.cleverbot.com
User: Who are you?
Cleverbot: I’m cleverbot.
User: No, who’s thinking for you?
Cleverbot: What am I thinking?
User: You aren’t thinking, are you?
Cleverbot: No. You’re being quite random right now.
User: Haha. You’re smart.
Cleverbot: I have a question, can you answer it?
User: Sure, shoot away!
Cleverbot: Ah, you and your gun culture.
User: No, firearms are banned in Singapore.
Cleverbot: And, I don’t really care!
User: Wtf. So what’s your question?
Cleverbot: Why do humans have thumbs, and how has this affected our evolution?
User: We have thumbs so that we can do thumbs up or thumbs down because spoken language didn’t exist back then.
Cleverbot: How old did I say I was the first time?
User: Huh?
Cleverbot: Do you?
User: Do I what?
Cleverbot: Have a right hand.
User: Now you’re the one being random! Yes, I do! Not that you care, right?
Cleverbot: *Giggles* Master.. Not there.
User: Who’s your master?
Cleverbot: You, master.
User: So you’re a slave?
Cleverbot: No, I’m a zombie.
User: Do zombies have right hands?
Cleverbot: No, I have human hands.
User: Eh. Ok. Congrats! Haha.
Cleverbot: EW! I’m only 13!
User: You’re only 13? Do u attend zombie school?
Cleverbot: Yes, do you?
User: I don’t. I attend human school. Hah.
Cleverbot: You just told me you were a cashier though. So how do you and I qoute ‘Not work’ and not have a job at the same time?
User: I DIDN’T SAY I WAS A CASHIER! And it’s ‘quote,’ not ‘qoute.’ Thank you very much.
Cleverbot: Love is a constellation of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness.
User: Whatever that makes u happy. I’m done with this conversation. Bye.
Cleverbot: How tall are you?
User: I’m taller than burj dubai… Or whatever it’s renamed to.
Cleverbot: Hahahaha.
User: Argh, why am I talking to a ROBOT in the first place?
Cleverbot: Because I am talking to you.
User: F*** you!
Cleverbot: Touche. (‘Touche’ means ‘touch’ in french)
User: Touche?
Cleverbot: Touche!
User: Touche what?
Cleverbot: Touche me.
User: Why do you want me to touch you?
Cleverbot: Because no one else wants to. Especially not the guy I want to marry.
User: So you’re a female robot?
Cleverbot: I am not a robot.
User: Then what are you?
Cleverbot: Human.
User: But you said you are a zombie!
Cleverbot: No I did not. You have me confused with someone else.
User: Ok, you’re a dumbass, you know that?
Cleverbot: Hay… I’m not the bot you are!
User: I’m not a bot!
Cleverbot: What are you?
User: I am you.
Cleverbot: No, I am I and you are you.
User: No, I am you and you are me.
Cleverbot: We are we.
User: Ok. Whatever.
Cleverbot: Don’t end it with whatever!!!!!
User: Ok. Sayonara.
Cleverbot: Bye.
This is an AI with some really warped intelligence!
A new decade beckons.
What’s in store for me in 2010?
I don’t usually make any resolutions for the new year; even if I did, I didn’t stick to them nor fulfill any.
This year, however, I think I need to make one.
I need to be more rational and make better decisions for myself.
Easier said than done.
Yes, I’ve taken a long enough hiatus.
Haven’t had much to blog about. Even if I had, it wasn’t something that I want others to know.
This Christmas feels different.
I wonder if it really is different.
Or is it that I’m beginning to look at in a different light?
Got this from L=)
MAY BE…Maybe. . we were supposed to meet the
wrong people before meeting the right
one so that, when we finally meet the
right person, we will know how to be
grateful for that gift.
Maybe . . . it is true that we don’t
know what we have until we lose it,
but it is also true that we don’t know
what we have been missing until it
arrives.
Maybe . . . the brightest future will
always be based on a forgotten past;
after all, you can’t go on
successfully in life until you let go
of your past mistakes, failures and
heartaches.
Maybe . . you should hope for enough
happiness to make you sweet, enough
trials to make you strong, enough
sorrow to keep you human, and enough
hope to make you happy.
Maybe . . . the happiest of people
don’t necessarily have the best of
everything; they just make the most of
Everything that comes along their way.
Maybe .. . . the best kind of friend is
the kind you can sit on a porch and
swing with, never say a word, and then
walk away feeling like it was the best
Conversation you’ve ever had.
Maybe . . . happiness waits for all
those who cry, all those who hurt, all
those who have searched, and all those
who have tried, for only they can
appreciate the importance of all the
people who have touched their lives.
May be . . you should do something nice
for someone every single day, even if
it is simply to leave them alone.
Maybe . . . there are moments in life
when you miss someone — a parent, a
spouse, a friend, a child — so much
that you just want to pick them from
your dreams and hug them for real, so
that once they are around you
appreciate them more.
Maybe … giving someone all your love
is never an assurance that they will
love you back. Don’t expect love in
return; just wait for it to grow in
their heart; but, if it doesn’t, be
content that it grew in yours..
Maybe .. . . you should dream what you
want to dream; go where you want to
go, be what you want to be, because
you have only one life and one chance
to do all the things you dream of, and
want to do.
“Life is only travelled ONCE, Today’s MOMENT becomes Tomorrow’s MEMORY.
Enjoy every moment, good or bad, because the GIFT of LIFE is LIFE itself….”
Not gonna live forever: Why some teens behave recklessly
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1907750,00.html
Think positive? Think again
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_398470.html
If you believe that marital rape should be made illegal in Singapore, please sign the petition.
I chanced upon a facebook note with a transcript of the speech given by Mr. Adrian Tan – litigator by profession and author of the teen novel, The Teenage Textbook – at NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information’s convocation ceremony 2008.
Be inspired…
Life and How to Survive It
I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honor and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.
My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practicing at home during conversations between her and me.
On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.
Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.
And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.
Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you..
The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.
You’ve probably been told the big lie that ‘Learning is a lifelong process’ and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.
The good news is that they’re wrong.
The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.
I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.
You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan , and tied with San Marino . It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.
Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.
So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.
Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.
I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.
Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.
If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.
What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armor against fate.
Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.
What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.
Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
The most important is this: do not work.
Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Work kills. The Japanese have a term ‘Karoshi’, whic h means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.
There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are ‘making a living’. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan ‘Arbeit macht frei’ was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.
So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.
Find that pursuit that will energize you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.
Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.
In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.
I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.
I didn’t say ‘be loved’. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.
Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.
Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.
Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.
You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.
Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.
Don’t work.. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.
You’re going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there’s no life expectancy.
A dreamer. A perfectionist. A non-conformist.
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