In a transhuman or posthuman setting, you are able to enhance your body and your mind with cybernetics or nootropics, or you could discard your body and drive a totally different body which might be organic or synthetic, or you could discard physicality and live as a ghost in a machine, in one of many simulated realities. Human minds are becoming more and more posthuman, being able to share their experiences, store their memories in exocortexes, fork their minds and reintegrate their minds later, and to create simulations upon simulations upon simulations for purposes that would eventually become incomprehensible to the human mind. Players straddle that point in the post-scarcity setting where anything could be created with a 3D printer, from food to entire space habitats. Just died? Retrieve your cortical stack where your memories are stored, print out a new body and insert the stack into the receptacle in […]
Continue readingMonthly Archives: July 2015
Homeward Bound Over the Hills
Aidilfitri vacation was coming to an end. We left for home from Pasir Mas at 0430 hours and arrived at the eastern end of the mountain roads just in time for Subuh prayers. By the time we reached the Titiwangsa rest stop an hour later, this was what we saw while the cold winds buffeted us: We got one amazing view from the top of the hills as the sun peeked over the horizon. If only we could stay up there and enjoy the view forever. The photos here could not do justice to the view because of the low light conditions, as well as the sun coming up right before us. It was like the top of the world, with the layer of clouds were like a carpet of whiteness in the valley far below us and the only explanation I can find… We stopped for breakfast at Baling, […]
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Hari Raya at Pasir Mas
This year I was able to take a full week’s vacation for Eid vacation at Pasir Mas. I was able to take a vacation because I had a job to take a vacation from this year, which is one of the many things I am grateful for this year. We arrived a couple of days early so Ain could work her magic in the kitchen. There was also a lot of orange soda thanks to Abang G. Eid was on a Friday. Irfan and I walked to the masjid, and almost missed the Eid prayers but got into the back line just in time. The first day of Eid there was curried-fried spiral pasta with rendang and ketupat palas. On the second day there was nasi dagang Terengganu, Tok Ma and Ain’s speciality, which was a favourite among visitors! Also, Irfan stunned everyone with his height. Irfan was ecstatic that […]
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Almost Time for Aidilfitri
Hari Raya Aidilfitri looms at the end of the week. Ramadhan is almost over. Last weekend, I was tasked with making a Aidilfitri card at work. As seen in the image above, I am in the card climbing a coconut tree. In fact, everyone in the department is in the card. Click here to view what everyone else is doing and magnify it for full visibiliy on Google Drive.
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Betty Was Missing
A month ago, Betty went out for her daily roams and never came back. The neighbours reported not seeing her. She was gone all throughout Ramadhan. We live close to thick tropical-grade underbrush. One possibility is that she might have come afoul of local wildlife – and I don’t mean squirrels. After three weeks, I had accepted that we would never see her or hear her little mewlings again. For weeks only Comel, the neighbour’s cat, hung around about the house. Here she is trying to persuade me to let her drive us to town. Well, not without a valid driver’s licence, missy. But on Sunday, while Irfan was playing with Comel’s owners from next door, his classmate came a-visiting bringing with him Betty! Thanks to Irfan’s sustained crowdsourcing efforts and detailed descriptions, his friend from school recognised Betty’s markings and her collar at a housing area half a mile […]
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What? A Nasyid?
Way, way out from the left field comes a blog post about nasyid. I was assigned to sing in the department’s nasyid group for an interdepartmental nasyid competition despite not having to sing in public since 1987. Here is a screen capture of a video of our singing, which is linked below. We took a team photo after our performance. Ain took the video, some photos and lent her support. The team ended up at fifth place out of twenty, which meant that my unholy, discord screeches were not strong enough to pull the team down. Check out the video of the team’s performance here. After 15 years of eking out a meagre living in the city, I am now starting to live in stranger – more enjoyable times.
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Legendary Guardians
On our recent return to the city, the GOKL gang gifted upon us more fun stuff: the Guardians of the Galaxy expansion set for the Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building game. Since then, we never had the opportunity to break it out of the box to play it… until today. The Hero cards included were Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Groot and Rocket Raccoon – thrown into the limelight thanks to last year’s film no doubt. Poor Phyla Vell, Adam Warlock, Bug, Mantis and Cosmo the Space Dog. Pip the Troll was absolutely inconsolable. The Masterminds provided in the set are Thanos the Goonie and the Kree Supreme Intelligence, supported by two Villain sets: Kree and Infinity Gems – the latter able to act as either Villains or Artefacts. Irfan and I played twice, both times against the Supreme Intelligence. The first game against the Intergalactic Kree Nega-Bomb Scheme was […]
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