Notes

Poor or Rich

• Hopes, Notes

Disclaimer: this topic is about economics which is not my field of study. This is just a random thought on economics and errors may present in this post.

Recently, I am concerned about why some people are poor and some others are very rich.

According to my economics teacher when I’m in grade 10, well, I’m not in social stream and hence not studying economics on grade 11 and 12, this problem is a cycle: people are poor because they didn’t have job to do, they don’t have job because they didn’t have the education that qualify the job, they don’t have that education because they are poor.

 There is a video about ‘particle exchange’ in Minute Physics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_RhISgoXUs ) which is analogised by an economical exchange which explains why the value of each country’s money is not the same and how to apply it in Physics.

I think that the concept of being rich and poor is made as early as when people take profit when exchanging things. Taking profit will cause people to make the value of their product higher and higher, thus creates inflation. People who cannot follow this velocity of inflation will be the ‘poor’, and those whose product value get high faster will be the ‘rich’.

For example, product A is sold at 10 gold, bought at 9 gold. Suppose there is only 2 people in this system: I and the supplier. Also, assume that there is just 10 gold in that system, which is mine. I then bought that product and paid 10 gold to the supplier. After that, I sold that product to the supplier at 9 gold. The supplier will get a profit of 1 gold and I will “lose” 1 gold. The total assets owned by me decreased by one gold and by the supplier increased by one gold. This makes me “poor”-er and the supplier “rich”-er. If I want to be the “rich” one, I must find a way to get 1 gold in other system where there is 1 gold available for free (or with exchange scheme like this one). If the price of selling and buying things are the same, the total value of a person will be the same: no rich and no poor.

Coldplay – Live2012

• Life Goes On, Others

8 February 2013

Today, I didn’t go to school, I got a bad fever since the day before. Today I woke up feeling better, and rested whenever possible. That night, I dreamt about my friends in Pelatnas 1 TOKI 2013, playing and joking around. I missed that moment.

In the morning, I went to feel a little nostalgic when looking around things from Pelatnas: the certificate, the psychological test result, the problems, the attempts to the problems, and the screen-shots of accounts hacked during unmonitored times. I got an inspiration to create a game for the next TWoS, a game adapted from a problem of Pelatnas.

During the afternoon, I continued to code that game. I also tried to get some rest, but I couldn’t fall asleep at all. Around 4pm, I started to watched Coldplay – Live2012 live album.

First thought, I was great, Hurts Like Heaven was the first song, followed by In My Place, then a little comments for the band from Chris Martin. The next song played was Major Minus, taped in Madrid which transitioned to Paris; later followed by Yellow which Chris sang the first verse accompanied by piano chords first.

Next comment was Jonny’s, which followed by Violet Hill taped in La Cigale, and God Put a Smile Upon Your Face, which used a newer arrangement since their performance of this song in Glastonbury Festival (2011). Princess of China was next, Rihanna was featured too.

Will’s was the next to comment. There was [a quite boring] Up in Flames and Viva la Vida, which was taped in Glastonbury Festival 2011 [also quite boring, because I’ve listened to the audio for many times].

The comment next is from Guy Berryman, my favourite Coldplay member, why? because he is cool. Then it was Charlie Brown, which was very amazing, the Xylobands were there almost all the time. It was followed by Paradise, also accompanied by the wristbands. They were very colourful.

Next was Us Against the World, played alongside the crowds, in Montreal. Followed by Clocks, which was also nice, like the music video which was shiny. The next comment came up, and Fix You followed it. It was very nice, like always. The last song was Every Teardop Is a Waterfall. Up with the Birds was played alongside the credits.

Overall, it was nice, to watch a concert film. Something that I didn’t like are they are focused in Stade de France, Paris; also, some recordings are in a low quality, maybe because I’m watching the DVD version. But it was nicer than watching a normal concert, because it was dramatized and edited to make us feel thrilled.

:)

National Geographic

• Life Goes On, Others

Early in this month, I and my friends went out to Sun Plaza. I intended to buy this month issue of Reader’s Digest, but it was not yet available. I spotted a National Geographic issue for this month with a very interesting topic: Exploration; and a interesting question: Why we explore.

Out of 7 topic offered, I’ve just finished reading 4 of them:

  • “World of Explorers”: this topic is full of colourful pictures: high mountain, deep sea, volcanic crater, outer-space, and rain-forest.
  • “Restless Genes”: discusses the gene that make our ancestors to explore the world, and subsequently the outer-space.
  • “Risk Takers”: contains profiles of risk takers: war-doctors, snake venom searcher, ice investigator, etc.
  • “Crazy Far”: explains why we explore the space, including future plans of space exploration.

For me, those articles are harder to understand compared to articles in Reader’s Digest. Maybe the consumer target for this magazine isn’t teenager like me. But I will read it.

My top 150 most-played songs of 2012

• Official Chart, Others

At the end of 2012, I have listened to BBC Radio 1’s “UK’s Top-Selling 150 Singles Chart” and came up with compiling my own list of most-played songs in my Winamp. This list of course is biased toward Coldplay songs, but of course it contained many great songs of 2012 like Caliban’s Dream, the song that is played on background when the Olympic Flame was being lit; Gary Barlow’s Sing; Muse’s Madness; and Cobalah Mengerti. Anyway, I present my top 150 most-played songs of 2012:

  1. Coldplay – Paradise (4:37)
  2. Underworld Feat. Alex Trimble, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Dockhead Choir, Elizabeth Roberts & Only Men Aloud – Caliban’s Dream (7:15)
  3.  Coldplay – Don’t Let It Break Your Heart (3:53)
  4. Coldplay – A Hopeful Transmission (0:33)
  5. Coldplay – Up with the Birds (3:47)
  6. Coldplay – Fix you (4:55)
  7. Coldplay – ‘Til Kingdom Come [Hidden Track] (4:12)
  8. Coldplay – Up in Flames (3:13)
  9. Coldplay – Major Minus (3:30)
  10. Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto (0:43) …

    My top 150 most-played songs of 2012Read More »

2012 in review

• Notes, Others

2012 has been a nice year, many things have happened, good and bad. The most significant I think was: this blog was updated more often than ever, haha. The following is what have happened to me in 2012:

  • January: it was the month where Paradise became the Official #1 Singles in the New Year Chart, also it was announced that I got the 1st rank in my class. Besides that, the TWoS 1-beta was held, and there was Chinese New Year.
  • February: hmmm, nothing very significant occurred in this month
  • March: this month, I’ve upgraded my laptop to Windows 7 (after 2 times failed attempt at 2010)! We celebrated Leonard’s birthday. JOINTS programming contest was held this month too. I got an interesting dream too.
  • April: OSK was held! We also have done another drama.
  • May: Got news that I passed the OSK, yay! Vesak was on this month too.
  • June: This was a very busy month: besides P2S1 and TWoS, I also joined OSP. I also graduated from Rainbow School.
  • July: The start of new term of school. I’ve been travelling to Singapore to attend my brother’s commencement. (day 1,2,3,4,5,and 6). I got the news that I’ve passed OSP and would join OSN at Jakarta, at last!
  • August: This month, PJJ was held, I’ve been preparing myself very much facing OSN.
  • September: OSN this month! (day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) Besides that, I’ve also got BNPCHS. [unable to post those yet, sorry]
  • October: Another TWoS, and my birthday! I departed to Bandung to attend Pelatnas 1 TOKI 2013.
  • November: Three fourth of this month has been spent on Pelatnas 1 TOKI 2013. [unable to post my story there yet, sorry]
  • December: Focusing on NTU/NUS Entrance Exam, and on web-developing: published a website for my class, ANT.

End of year 2012, Happy new year 2013. Thank you for following my blog for a year, hope you’ll enjoy it next year.

Upadte (5 January 2013): Interesting fact of this post: this is the post which includes the most links to other posts in my blog so far (there were 25, haha)

Google Zeitgeist 2012

• Others, Videos

This video show us what had happened in 2012. For me, many things have happened in 2012: success and also failures. Anyway, this video ranges from London 2012, James Cameron, Felix Baumgartner, US Election, Euro 2012, independence of Southern Sudan, Gangnam Style video, final Space Shuttle program (STS-135), death of Neil Armstrong, Whitney Houston, until the recent Hurricane Sandy.