Singapore: Taking oxymoron to a whole new level

As I’m writing this from Singapore’s Carlton Hotel, I’ve come to the realization that most of what I’ve heard of the little country from others who’ve been here have been confirmed. What I also realize is the fact that some of these things I’ve heard have much darker implications that I initially thought, which sort of warps the image I had for the island nation.

I got here for work, expecting a pretty packed schedule like the last time I got out of my birth country for work. But no. We had to find our own way out of the airport and to our accommodation. We had to sort out our own transport and food, and that hurts when you come from a country which currency is close to three times smaller, and shrinking; a meal at a fast food joint here could pay for two back home.

As a result of this kind of independence that I don’t think anyone can appreciate, our schedule was pretty lax. No ‘get to the lobby by 6pm so we can go the restaurant and have dinner by 7’ nonsense, which results in a wounded wallet and a ton of free time. No ‘get ready by noon because the event starts at 2pm and we have the traffic to deal with’ either, since the gig was held in the hotel itself. And because of this unexpected amount of free time, I got into contact with a couple of friends, one whose family has moved here since before the person in question got to college and the other who moved here for work after graduation. Because of the short notice, none of them could play tour guide (and sort out my meals) for me, so I was left wandering the streets while looking for lunch and dinner. And what I saw was quite shocking.

There are many things you hear about Singapore, chief among them are the fact that the people here live very fast-paced – and there for stressful – lives, and if you can afford a car here, chances are you can afford the country. The latter was painfully obvious; there are more taxis than there are cars, and in the few cars that are around, you’d be about as lucky as finding a needle in a haystack without hurting yourself if you could find one occupied only by the driver. Almost everyone carpools here, unlike back home where almost everyone insists to be the only living organism in their car.

And the reason this is possible is because the public transport system is great. Getting around using the MRT was an experience very different from the LRT back home. While the latter made you wait so long you could finish reading a book, the wait for the MRT never took me longer than two minutes, and the average waiting times don't seem to exceed 10 minutes. The trains themselves were great too. The public service announcements were fully automated, and at every stop, you are reminded to mind the platform gap. You are informed of a fork in the transit’s journey a few stations beforehand, and are reminded to get off and wait for the next one that goes to your destination. Some of the train cars even indicate which station it is in, which stations it will go to and on which side will the doors open.

All that said, the road traffic light system is a total mess. It’s such a mess, you’d think your hair when you just woke up was the most orderly thing in the world. Imagine this: you’re at a crossroads, and you’ve got the green light to either turn left, go straight or turn right. But so does the bunch of people on the opposite side of traffic. This means that if you were turning right, you might have to stop in the middle of the junction of there was oncoming traffic going straight, or worse, turning right as well. Add walking pedestrians into the mix and I’m very surprised that I’ve yet to encounter a traffic accident.

There is an equally surprising upside to this though. Because of the chaos that is the traffic light systems at junctions – or it may well be another reason altogether like, maybe law enforcement – there is no jaywalking. I hesitate to say absolutely no jaywalking because I saw a pair of people doing just that yesterday, on the way back to the hotel for dinner. Save that pair, absolutely no one crossed the road, even when there were no oncoming vehicles for a good minute. Everyone waited for the green man in the box on a stick. Some sticks even tell you to speed up when you see the green man flashing and a timer shows up above his head, and don’t bother beginning to cross if you haven’t already when that happens.

Also, when you are out and about, you notice the little things that make this small country so much better than its neighbours. Half the escalators I encountered had a sticker by the side that said “keep left” which allowed those who were in a rush to overtake the slow walkers. A bit like in traffic, really, only here people actually do it naturally, without needing to be told. Or honked at. You don’t see the lovey-dovey couple blinded by their mutual infatuation that makes them think that the escalator belongs to them and they can stand wherever they very well please. Well, you do, but most eventually realize that they’re being uncourteous.

Which brings me to the dark implication about the people’s fast-paced and stressful lives. Throughout the day, and especially at night, you see properly dressed people standing around – some even squatting around – on the streets with their cigs alight. I found this to be a little disturbing, considering there are more women that do this than men. Even the women in their skirts are smoking on the streets while squatting (try getting that image into your head), instead of going to some café and have a proper seat. I was half thinking that they were whores, but when I walk past them, I overhear their conversations and most of them involve how they plan to either go on an eternal holiday or strangle their co-workers and bosses with their own intestines. It is still a disturbing sight nevertheless, to see people who are dressed up quite nicely – some of them quite obviously fairly well-to-do too – behaving like homeless people. And speaking of which, there was one camping behind the hotel I am staying at, with his cardboard mattress; a sight I never thought to see here, but I suppose I should expect this in every single country in the world.

So yes, while the collective minor differences do ultimately change the experience – though I can’t quite decide if it’s for better or worse, I find Singapore to be quite like Malaysia. If you don’t know the place, you’d think it’s paradise on earth, but when you get down there and experience it for yourself, it feels just like any other place in Southeast Asia. Just like an outsider would find Malaysians polite, locals would know that they are so only to the fair skinned and without black hair. To their fellow locals, they are about as polite as an old timer prison inmate is polite to a newcomer, i.e. the rudest, possible imbeciles you can find on the planet.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: Sometimes, I miss my childhood innocence that allows me to be really excited whenever I go on a journey, especially if it's to a place I've never been to before. Now, while I'm able to appreciate the differences more, the experience ends up being mellowed by the similarities that I find instead.

Another pseudo-feminist bullshit flushed down the toilet

The past week has been quite good to me, considering what it is going to do to me for these two weeks. But anyway, here's another piece from work. This time, I would strongly suggest you go see the original at my work site, simply because it has images to show what I mean and I can't be bothered to look for them all over again and reupload them here. Also some shameless linkback to a previous post, but this time, it is a significant one, as you will see when you come across it. And with that, here it is.

So we recently came across this blog post on the ideal female character designs from the perspective of women.

Before I go any further, let me just say that in regards to feminism, I’m indifferent to the cause, for with every good point an actual feminist brings up, there is always someone else who is going to warp it into something either completely pointless or absolutely misandric. The same applies to this one. This is because while I support the appropriate dressing of female characters in games, sometimes the people who are pushing for it are just either missing the point or getting the completely wrong idea.

Let me just start with MMOs. One thing that I do agree with is that higher-end armors for female characters should be more concealing. It makes little sense that a full suit of leather armor provides less protection than, say, a titanium micro bikini. Of course, this is when the character you play is a fairly generic one, despite what the narration will want you to believe.

Of course, this issue is more prevalent with female characters than it is with the male ones. The rarer instances where the man is less covered up than the woman are just as ridiculous and, personally, hurts to look at. Just take Chris Redfield’s ‘Warrior’ costume in Resident Evil 5, for example.

Or his unlockable 'Sailor' outfit in Resident Evil: Revelations.

They are impractical, they don’t fit the setting and they don’t match the character. Of course, these are alternate costumes that are meant to, ahem, change the experience of the game; for better or worse, I hesitate to decide. Also, these are still fine only because they are alternate costumes, but when you have a default costume like the one we find in the upcoming Mevius Final Fantasy...

So yes, the (over)sexualization of characters in video games is not exclusively a problem for the ladies. But I digress, and I get it. The ladies don’t want to be objectified in such a sexual way and they want people to know that beauty comes in many forms, not just physical. For most of us civilized men (or women, if you are so inclined), we think the same as well; we don’t see some exposed bits of skin and immediately take leave of our senses, nor do we forget the rest of the world when we see some bits of fatty tissue jiggling about.

Despite so many people being against it, however, it continues to exist. People continue to put stuff like that in their content. Some call it fan service, and it works. I won’t get into details as to why that is so for two reasons: one, I already have and two, doing so here might offend people. The point remains; it works. The game publishers’ marketing gentlemen (or indeed ladies) in their suits keep telling the developers to put in things like this to entice people. As little sense as it may make to you, this happens. I know this from personal experience and while I’m at it, let me tell you this: nothing feels more awkward or wrong to have a lady tell you to include more scantily-clad women into your content.

But again, I digress. Back to oversexualization, and this is where I get to the missing-the-point and getting-the-wrong-idea part I mentioned earlier. The response – or remedy, to some – to this problem is simply, a different portrayal. This actually works most of the time, as simple as it sounds. In fact, what some characters need are simply a bit more cloth over their skin to make them look much better. Take some of the examples from the blog post earlier. Some, like Power Girl, Pirotess and Emma Frost, need only some more cloth added over their skins (and maybe moving some around) to make them look better than their original, without being out of place or character.

However, this sometimes leads to another problem, which begins when people don’t see that these three conditions – practicality and compatibility with settings and character – are not absolutes. You don’t have to have all three for a costume to make sense but at the same time, sometimes not having all of them wouldn’t work either.

First to be promoted on the page is Princess Peach. While it’s fine to make her stronger and more independent, it doesn’t quite fit her character since she is, after all, a princess. It’s fine to make her a little more like Princess Zelda, but completely revamping her outfit and giving her a rocket launcher totally messes with the setting and her character, as practical – and I hesitate to use the word, even on the loosest terms – as it may look.

Then we have Dragon Age’s Morrigan. Anyone who has played the game would know that if she could, she would be completely naked. Yes, it’s impractical for such an adventure, but it fits the setting and her character. SPOILER ALERT: Remember the bit near the end of the game where she threatened to burn the castle down the next time a servant offered her more concealing clothing? Obviously, the person who redesigned her doesn’t.

Next is Zero Suit Samus Aran. Yes, it’s impractical, yes it doesn’t fit her character, but it is very arguable that it fits the setting. The Zero Suit is technically an undersuit, to be worn under her Power Suit the same way F1 drivers wear a flameproof layer beneath their race suits and helmets. She was never meant to go on her missions on just her Zero Suit, but Nintendo has decided to market her that way because fans like that look. As we’ve established, publishers know sexualized characters sell, and that’s why they continue to do it.

In the end, if there is one similarity between the popular female characters in popular media, it’s that almost all of them have ‘perfect’ bodies; hourglass figure, pretty faces, well endowed and the like. While it won’t make things right, a way to possibly reduce what people perceive as the sexualization of female characters is to have more variety; more body types, some tall and some short, some with fair skin and others with darker skin. Also preferable is to have this sort of variety in leading roles, not just as supporting characters. But I wonder how that will go, considering the redesigns by the ladies over at the 'Women in Fantasy Illustration' group still have near-perfect figures.

And on that sarky bombshell, adieu to y’all.

This originally showed up here.

Why ads are the terrorists of the Internet

Again, a piece I wrote for work. This will include a shameless linkback to a previous post that I've written, as well as a link to my work site. Again, for your convenience. And with that, here it is.

Over a month ago, I talked about the hacking streak we've been seeing in recent times, and how as much as hackers are the bane of the Internet, we need them to keep the Internet in check. I also talked a little about how we can avoid being part of this whole hacking drama and just watch as it unfolds.

Then came reports of a government agency producing spyware that can embed itself into your computer parts’ firmware, making them undetectable and unremovable. And as a result of that, I’m not sure if all the preventive measures I’ve stated start to make more sense than ever or have just been rendered pointless.

But for now, I’m going to be a narcissist and assume the former, and talk about something else that needs to go away for us all to feel and actually be a lot safer when we explore the wilderness that is the Internet: pop-up ads.

Before we talk specifically about pop-up ads, let’s first talk about ads in general. Now, let me be the first to admit that ads leave me somewhere between indifferent and indignant. I’ve yet to come across one that was actually useful, whether it be helping me discover something new, or convince me to change my stance about anything. Or whatever else ads are supposed to do. Chances are, you haven’t either. Some of us find it so annoying that we install ad blockers onto our web browsers. The rest would come to accept the fact that ads are a way – sometimes the only way – certain pages make money, so we tolerate it and take the annoyance as a price to pay for getting access to content in lieu of money.

And I get it. I get that sometimes ads are there to try to get you interested in whatever is being advertised. I also get that the pages need some form of compensation for their work, and ads are always there to play that part. But what really gets my blood boiling – and making me hate all the other innocent ads in the process – are pop-up ads and by extension, fake ads.

Pop-up and fake ads were, as far as I’m aware, exclusive to the darkest parts of the Internet; like porn, cult and torrent sites, where the things you can find there are questionable in the first place. Of course, when you dare to trek such parts of the Internet, you should be prepared to deal with such things and know how to avoid falling victim to them. This is especially true of fake ads, which will, say, disguise itself as a cluster of download buttons, obscuring the actual one that will give you what you were looking for.

These get my blood boiling – as I’m sure they would yours – simply because they are intrusive, fake and, more often than not, ridden with malware. Accidentally clicking on a pop-up ad or fake download button and you can be sure to spend the next few hours running antivirus scans or restoring your system to a state a few hours before you got played into downloading the malware.

And yet this is still fine, since such are the risks of trekking into the dark parts of the Internet. It stops being okay when these intrusive pop-ups and false ads start showing up in relatively mainstream sites. These are especially annoying on mobile devices because the fake ones take up space that should be reserved for content, and the pop-ups take over your page entirely; there is usually no clear close button to press, and if you press back instead, you go to the page before the one with the blasted pop-up.

I remember while I was reviewing the Xiaomi Mi Pad, I was greeted with the fairly common pop-up that tells me that my WhatsApp needs an update, while I was reading an article that a link was shared on Facebook. This is both hilarious and enraging, simply because I had not installed WhatsApp on the Mi Pad. While there are many versions of this, there are some where, short of closing your browser or spamming the ‘Back’ button at a rate of infinite presses per second, the pop-up endlessly loops and refreshes itself until suddenly your device is forced to download some suspicious .apk file which, by this point you wonder if it’s already too late and should toss your device at the face of the next person you suspect to be a criminal.

Just as how the people behind legitimate ads pay to get you to see what is being advertised, the low-lives behind false and intrusive ads pay to acquire your private information, which can be sold for even more money. We citizens of the Internet know this. Some take what legitimate advertisers consider the extreme step of installing ad blockers. Granted, most who do, do it simply because they are annoyed by ads, few for genuine safety concerns. Either way, legitimate advertisers should help the rest of the Internet to get rid of the plague that is malware-ridden ads. Otherwise, I have a feeling that the day will come when people will indiscriminately blame ads for the rise of hacking and security breaching incidents. I know I would.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: On a lighter note, the creator of pop-up ads at the very least has apologized last year for the monstrosity he created, and the state of the Internet that is so reliant on ads. In the unlikely event that you see him while walking down the street, all I ask is that you control your rage if you must express it.

This originally showed up here.