Green - The Color of Peace

    

I have been thinking about colors in nature and how color has an effect on the human psyche or spirit. The most most prominent colors found in our natural world are green. For most of the day, whenever we pass through a garden or forest that full of plants that has a vivid green, we mostly would go "Ahhhhhh" kinda scene and we are able to remove ourselves from the confines of large buildings, when we are surrounded by green. From large forest trees towering overhead to small blades of grass, at least for part of the year, we can be engulfed in a world of green.

The campaign "Go-Green" doesn't executed with only one reason which is to save plants. But actually the campaign itself is trying to save humanity. Without green things, people would be in a hatred state in a much longer period and also those that have diseases will be most likely have a hard time to relax their mind if there isn't any presence of green things, especially plants.

As I mentioned earlier, without green things, people goes to rage state much easier. That's why wars happen more frequently on the place that have less green things. For example, the countries in Arab and also Africa. How about countries that full of green plants like New Zealand? Did they had a war? The answer is no. 

So in conclusion, green has brought peace to certain countries in these few decades and it still continues, unless all the plant died, and less green things to be seen in our future, and thus, the end of the world. You might think it's too late, but it never was. A good start will be planting trees in front of your house. It might be small in number, but actually you have done something big for the beloved mother earth. So go green and save your family and save the world. 

How to think creative

Being a creative and a student, I often find times when the struggle to explain the task of getting to an idea is further complicated by the need to understand that the students are in fact novice to all this. I did a lot of my research into Critical Literacy and ideas during my semester 4 in KPMIM. Since then I have explored, read, watched, combined many theories and examples of how to get to the that idea. Whether its the hard toil or eureka moment, there are practices in place that can aid in the coming forth of good and even great ideas. Nevertheless, that bad ideas are the metaphorical swamp that most creative person finds themselves in at the start of any adventure into the creative world. So, we can only really is by withdrawing out of the mire of mediocrity and transform to a better one.

As time pass, I have acknowledged a certain way to obtain a good idea without much effort, as written in James Webb Young's inspiring book. Some further reading into the book "How to do better Creative Work" it was explained that the reason that most people haven't truly understand the process not because people haven't already thought of this plan, but instead find it hard to maintain the process. Perhaps it is due to lack of motivation, time, or a number of other factors.  Nevertheless, the reason this process works is because it delivers the structure that the mind needs to go through to achieve that elusive idea. Here is the list again and the breakdown to it's value and purpose:

1. Gather as much information as possible. Make use your surrounding, be aware and alert.
2. Chew it over and let your first ideas leave your system.
3. Stop thinking about the subject and let your subconscious get to work. Think out of the box and be different.
4. Take out a paper to write down any single idea that cross into your mind.
5. Shape and develop the idea for practical usefulness.

So, developing idea isn't that hard, but it's the just the matter unlocking your creative slot in your brain to do the work. How to do that? Like I mentioned earlier, make use your surrounding, in term of environment and also the news about the world and such. Try to practice the method once in awhile with your friend about developing idea on how to create a group that make a product that is similar to the product that already existing. So, good luck trying.

Malaysian drama and film? What's about it?

Last week I have volunteered myself in Mr Mark's class to do a rant about Malaysian drama and film. The title really suits me because I do have some knowledge about videography skill (but I'm newbie, I only know the basic stuff). Even though the topic really arouse my interest to do a 5 minute rant, I had to end the rant at 2.14 minute because my nervousness has completely took control over my body. It's sad for not doing well in Mr Mark's last class, because at least I wanted him to be happy. However, I see that posting in the blog will be another way to express what I felt about Malaysian drama and film with more detail.

In the graphical aspect, you do realize our drama and film couldn't do much about it even though they have studied a very unique way to create a unique graphic. But they just didn't. Eh, why? Lazy enough to do a stunning graphic? I mean come one, a little bit of Adobe After Effect will do the trick. 

Libas (2011)

Have you ever seen at least 5 Malaysian film/drama that use Computer Generated Image (CGI) like Battleship, Transformer or even ancient Jurassic Park? Nop, I didn't. But yes, there's a recent film like Geng: The Adventure Begin (Upin&Ipin), Nasi Lemak 2.0  and also Cicakman which make use the existence of CGI. Anyway, like I have mentioned earlier, It's just not sufficient and the graphic still need to improve. By any means, if you are a Malaysian director and would like to use CGI in your film, please make it properly because movie like Libas has an "OK" graphic during the game, but the sound effect doesn't synchronize and even some of the dressing are just plain stupid. Yeah, stupid. I don't even know how the movie won an award. The one that judges it probably have the same mindset, who knows. =)

The most popular type of film and drama is most probably about hantu (Ghost), love and rempit type of film. I'm not saying it's bad, but come on, every single years your company would produce that same kind of type and script. Just because your main target is those with "takper la, I kisah, asal dapat tengok artis best", then you're just giving Malaysia a bad name. Repeating the same kind of story doesn't really develop the people mind that watching it. Please be more creative, don't be a typical Malaysian please. (Typical Malaysian > those that love repeating the same thing again and in the end they stuck with the same thing). 

Impak Maksima (I have never watched it)

If the director really wanted to deliver a certain message, then everything would have better. The hidden message is the most important part, and how to deliver it must be unique and different from anyone else. But I guess that would never be achievable since the publisher mostly aim on money instead of educating nor motivating people. A film like the Pursuit of Happiness act by Will Smith once in awhile does make my spirit to study burning with passion.

Recommended

Perhaps I have blabbered too much, but still there are more to be said. Unfortunately I have assignment to be done, so bye2. 

(P/S: The CL part of this post is about the typical Malaysian viewer and director) and oh yah, can this post count as two post instead? :/ )

Cartoon is no good

Have you ever watch cartoon? I mean, during your childhood time? Well, certainly you love the cartoon you watched everyday until you hide the remote control so no one can switch the channel to something else like News and Cooking Shows, right? From what I see during I was a kid is that cartoon always deliver a good message and all the drawing are colorful and it seems nice. But be warned, actually you missed out certain things because you just didn't know what exactly are you seeing at the moment. In this post, I will expose certain pictures that shows the wicked tactic to teach us bad thing while we were kids.

First, In the scene just before Simba meets Rafiki, he tiredly flop down on the edge of a cliff, a cloud of dust rises which purportedly for a few frames spell the word S-E-X. The debate is that the special effects team put it in intending it to read S-F-X to leave their little mark on the film. I say judge for yourself but it looks like ‘sex’ to me.

Second would be the scene where Astro's mom trying to *shoot* the oil into Astro's butt. Yes, we get it! Astro Boy is a robot, so he needs oil. But why is he getting an butt penetration instead of drinking the oil from a can like all normal cartoon robots? Silently this scene has develop kids memory of how does it looks like being penetrated in the butt.

The last one will be the story of The Little Mermaid. Do you remember The Underwater Castle? Well certainly you do if you are a fan of the story. Do smile when you realize there is a phallic object in the castle. It's even shiny, I'm amazed. However, when Disney were asked why such object appear in the innocent story, they said it was unintentional. Owh well, I could have guess that is the answer a thousand years ago.

In conclusion, be careful of what you are seeing and also what your kid might be seeing. It may look cute and cuddly, but the hidden message is often scary. Happy watching cartoon =)  [Don't go for Teletubies!]

Starbuck - Evil much?

Starbuck, the famous and well-known brand all over the world now has become a necessity for people to buy their product. Even a few of my friends are fond of the coffee made by the company, but unfortunately coffee isn't really my thing, so I have missed out the amazing taste made by Starbuck for all this years. When my friend spend a little time at the shop, I sometimes wonder, what on earth the logo means? Nor, who is the women exist in the logo? I have kept the question to my myself for 5 years, and today, I have realize that logo isn't as nice as the taste of coffee made by them (i just assume the coffee rocks because lot of people drinks it, so yeah =) ).

When you see that Starbucks logo, you probably think the same thing as me:  "There's that 'smiling mermaid' logo, there must be some good, but overpriced, coffee nearby", or perhaps "There's that evil Starbucks corporation that's helping to destroy the world". Either way, you're right.

 Let's cut the ranting, and straight to the real meaning of picture shall we? From my background reading, I have found that  the logo actually resembles Siren, the creature from the Greek myth. 

Who is Siren? Is she good? Noooooooooo, unfortunately she's not, well that's what I was told from certain article. In Greek mythology, the Sirens were dangerous creatures, portrayed as femme fatales who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island.

Does the action done by Siren seems familiar to you? In Starbuck's case, they charm us with the amazing taste of the coffee but silently the money is then transferred to weapon funding, well, for nuclear weapon perhaps? (It's only a rumor, which is not spread by me. Tq)

The Old Logo, which is far evil-looking.

Also notice that the mermaid's wavy hair forms a sort of mirrored 333/333, or "666".  Her hair also resembles the waves of the ocean (Pisces, Aquarius, Atlantis).  The mermaid forms a fancy "peace sign" as well.  The peace sign, of course, doesn't really symbolize peace at all, it is an ancient rune symbolizing death, also known as the Broken Cross, the Crow's Foot, and the Witch's Foot, and used on Nazi graves.

This post might seems quite bias, but I'm just sharing what I have discovered. No hard feeling and i didn't force you to stop drinking coffee at Starbuck, but it's just that I wanted to inform you relation of one thing to another. Happy drinking =)

Jack The Ripper case - The Media?

An illustration of the murder place

As I was exposed with Jack The Ripper case in my class which has been conducted by my Critical Literacy lecturer, Sir Mark, I began to think that the case is something that require "out-of-the-box" thinking. From Critical Literacy study guide book, there are a few name with certain reason why they are accused for the murder of the canonical five Ripper's victim. They were accused mostly based on skill, job, past experience, and also alibi. But what I fear is that, the killer doesn't certainly have to be one person and also it should not only those listed earlier.

The "Dear Boss" letter

In my thoughts, the newspaper is the one that invented "Jack The Ripper" so that they can boost their sales. To be precise, it's a Star newspaper. That newspaper is the newspaper that give appearance of Jack the Ripper in their publication which launched just before the murders began. The journalist from The Star said that the reason why can do such early appearance is because they received a letter from "Jack the Ripper" himself earlier one day. However, there are certain individual that expert enough, has recognized that the handwriting of the letter was belong to one of the journalist in The Star. Weird enough? Right.

The reason why I said that the murder was not done by a single person is because the victim are merely related and only 3 victim has the same exact way of getting murdered. Other than that, it's different. If those that read about the case would know that there are a few blood written initial usually appear beside the victims. If based on my experience, doing things like that will arouse the interest of people to know what exactly is happening, which in the end give lots of profit to the media. The authentic way killing also add another reason why someone is going to buy a newspaper just get updated, because, IT IS REALLY RARE for someone to kill that far nor that detail. If i'm just a normal lady living nearby the neighborhood, getting updated about the case so that I can be aware of what might be coming ahead is certainly a must.

If you still think the killer is still one of the person listed by books and website, think again my dear friend. Thinking wider is the special ingredient for one to be wiser.

Excerpt 4: The Degree Of Happiness

        ”The spirit level” made a big (and persuasive, though debatable) point of some well known effects: people tend to care about how they turn out in comparison with others. People tend to compare themselves to people who are better off than themselves. In some interesting cases, people tend to care more about their relative than their absolute level of income, for instance.

        Status seems to matter. Almost every publication that talks about this topic has a background section about the importance of status relations in the evolution of social animals. Ape’s are brought to the witness stand. De Waal is mentioned. One reason such a section is included is to make a point about the irrepressible presence of this factor in our lives. However we are to cope with the effects of status differences, the anxieties, hostilities and pointless loss of well-being it entails, we cannot get around it: it’s a brute, evolutionary fact. If people are made unhappy by inequality, then we should diminish inequality. Not only in terms of wealth, but in every regard that matters.

        But the curious thing is that not everybody cares about status, whether in terms of attractiveness, wealth, knowledge or popularity. Some who are comparably less well off, and aware of this fact, are not bothered by it. Surely, though there are plenty of reasons to believe that diminishing inequality is usually the right thing to do, getting people to care less about inequality when it comes to things that doesn’t really matter should be part of the overall strategy as well. In related news, the detrimental effects of physical ideals derived from advertising and the like may be countered either by influencing their content, or by undermining their ideal-setting status.

        One route goes via switching comparison classes: compare yourself to a group in which you come out better.

        Another is by switching what is compared: some people have ”more money than taste”, for instance, so you could just switch the comparison that matters from money to taste and in the latter case, you come out on top. The great thing with this particular strategy is that taste is a matter of taste: two people can believe that they come out better in the comparison, and both feel better about themselves. Psychologists will often advise you to have a ”complex sense of self”, because if you have a number of personal characteristics that you care about, failure in one department doesn’t matter that much. In every group you find yourself, you are probably best in some regard, and you can choose to concentrate on that. Others may do the same, and no group has to decide which regard that matters in that group.

        But the preferable strategy, it would seem, is often not to care about the outcome of comparisons at all. It doesn’t matter all that much who’s got the better car, or even the better sense, because feeling good about oneself isn’t necessarily a matter of comparison. You may be contented without being smug, even over the fact that you have cracked this particular code. Sure, we usually do compare in order to evaluate, but we don’t have to do this. We may ”satisfice”, pick an alternativ that is good enough, as well as ”maximize” as an overall strategy. Not just when it comes to particular products but as a general life strategy as well.

        If wellbeing is to a significant degree and for most people dependent on coming out on top in comparisons, we should choose the kind of currency for comparison that makes the worst off less worse off. The great thing with money is also the problem with it: it buys stuff. If I have a lot of it and you got less I can buy the things that you need, and there is not much you can do about it. If I care for knowledge instead, for instance, and know more than you do, there is not less knowledge for you to get your hands on. The scarcity of job-opportunities aside, it’s hard to see why I should feel bad over the fact that you know more about philosophy and cognitive science than I do. And it’s certainly hard to see that the problem of academic jealousy should best be solved by making the ”top earners” know less, rather than by getting rid of this obsession.

        The case for inequality is often based on the premise that we need something to aspire to in order to be motivated. If we can become better off by developing some talent or working harder, we just might do that. Surely, that kind of psychological mechanism exists, even though it isn’t the only game in town. The thing aspired to doesn’t have to be money, and the process does not need to be a zero-sum game.

        Certainly, we need to take the problems of inequality and the tendencies mentioned seriously, as factual problems. But we shouldn’t take the psychological tendencies that constitute one of the conditions for these problems as brute, unchangeable facts.

Excerpt 3: All The Cool Kids are Leaving Facebook

        Everybody loves to get behind the hot young startup and embrace it as if it's the greatest thing in the world since sliced bread. Google+ is the latest examples with people in the know shouting and screaming from the rooftops about how amazing they are. When you see something special for the first time you just get that feeling in your stomach that you are in at the ground level and you are bursting with excitement waiting for the rest of the world to find out.

        People used to have that same feeling with Twitter and before that with Facebook. For a couple of years the online geeky community (I don't say geeky in a negative way because I was one) knew about Twitter, understood it's power and every piece of news coverage or mainstream attention was cheered as if we all owned shares in the company. Facebook was exclusive at the start too. Only my young cool "in-the-know" friends were on it for a couple of years. Most people looked at us talking about Facebook as if we had two heads and presumed it was some passing trend for kids. We've hit a very different situation now where Facebook and Twitter have hit the mainstream and for the first time in my recollection the press is starting to turn a little on them both...

        The problem here for Facebook and Twitter is that they are starting to become so ubiquitous that they are no longer exciting. I remember when mobile phones and SMS came on the scene it was the greatest thing we had ever seen at the time and there was endless buzz. We take SMS for granted now and there is nothing sexy about it and that is where Facebook and Twitter are headed. With revenues of over 2 billion and closing in on a billion users Facebook is no longer a startup and also no longer an underdog. A couple of years ago, it could have gone the same way as a Myspace or a Friendster but it's everywhere now. If anything, Facebook is the new Google, not in terms of what it does, but in terms of a company that has transitioned from startup to big tech giant that makes lots of money. Twitter still has a slight tag of underdog about it but it is also too important as a communication tool to just fade away. Just look at the way that Apple is baking Twitter in to every single one of their mobile devices. Sure people will start to use it in a different way and it will evolve but it is certainly here to stay.

        If Twitter is the place for cool kids now, what will happen if Twitter also starts to be used by everyone? Everyone migrate to Dr.Book (The new social networking by Dr.Rozmey)? I don’t think so.

Excerpt 2: The Jews and Their Deceit

Jews — the grandest of all hypocrites — systematically deny their holocaust against the Palestinians whilst demanding that individuals who dispute the official™ Jewish holocaust narrative be thrown in prison…

Hitler played heavily on the anti-Semitism already rooted within his people. He resurrected ideas that a previous king of Germany, Frederick the Great, had introduced. There were distinct categories of human beings. Essentially, the Germans were Aryans, and everyone else was sub-human. Hitler took these ideas and embellished them. He blamed the Jews for "two great wounds upon humanity: "Circumcision of the Body and Conscience of the Soul."

The Jews were accountable for that.

As Hitler gained popularity, his hatred of Jews spread and became a rallying cry.

The Nazi propaganda paper, Der Sturmer, revived the "Blood Libels." The church would warn their constituents: "Watch your children 6-7 weeks before Passover… Everyone knows that just before Passover Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah."

The attitude taught to the children was, "Just as one poisonous mushroom can poison a whole family, one Jew can poison a whole town or a whole country!"

For centuries people are so bothered by the way we’re treating the Jews. They can’t understand it, because they are God’s creatures. But cockroaches and mosquitoes are also God’s creatures, and we destroy them.

Words can create an attitude. If a person says something loud enough and often enough, he creates a climate. And under that climate, all sorts of things can happen.

Excerpt 1: Thinking Folly by Eckhart Tolle

The wise and the fools, the king and the wizard, and the thinker and the imaginator.  This is some of the excerpt that can be found from the article of Thinking Folly by the author of “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. The article contains one of the most unimaginable ideas that no common human can think of in this few decade. What Eckhart has interpreted in his article is that thinking is not the whole point of obtaining the Eureka moment, but the imagination itself.

In our daily life, we think to solve things. But as I see it, thinking isolates a situation or event and calls it good or bad, as if it had a separate existence. As too much reliance put upon thinking, reality becomes patchy.

In Tolle’s work, he describe thinking is a disease. The disease as he proclaim is where the mind of a human is the one that control you more than you control the mind. As he puts it, "the mind is a superb mechanism when it is used rightly. If used in the wrong manner, however, it becomes very destructive. This is what Tolle express in his article yet what he express does share the same belief as I am as I believe if one’s too dependent on it’s mind to think, then you yourself will be the puppet of your mind in the end of the day.

According to Einstein, thinking “plays only a subordinate part in the brief, decisive phase of the creative act itself”. Such quotation explains that those that who never stops to think is an idiot who didn’t want to accept what’s in front of them and what’s behind the big block that was created from the black fragmentation of wasted time. If you were to become a unique scientist or thinker, stop thinking and start imagining. If you didn’t, then your life is as common as the other human that live near you.

This is illustrated in a story of a wise man who have believe that he acquire a high degree of language skill in his life.

He enter a school that focus on that certain language and he and his family were very buoyant that he would gain a prestigious rank in the school.

But as time flies, he failed to achieve what’s being targeted and shall the people around him questioning the reason for his failure.

“What terrible wind that disrupts your study? Or perhaps you’re just being unlucky” they said.

The man portrays a sad face and said “Maybe”.

As silence comes in the conversation, the man leaves the school and began to study somewhere else.

When the next examination arrives, he shows a confident face that radiates all the other candidate about the success that might comes in this exam.

But again the tragedy repeats as for the outcome result isn’t amusing to his eye. Unfortunately, as friend of his accidently caught his gloomy face and unintentionally began to say a sad full question of “Are you and idiot, you could have done better.”

He answers “Maybe”.

The significant of the wise man to say “maybe” is to refuse of judging anything that happens.

But instead, he accepts in what just happen and believe there’s always an opportunity and opportunity isn’t being god or whatsoever, but it is us that who are suppose to create it.

If he were to try to think of his failure and find the reason for it, even thou with continuous failure attempt, he know there is a greater thing to worry and thinking of a failure for a written based paper examination would only trap you in your mind prison.

(P/S: Somehow i believe that my example of story doesn't seem to be "right". A reconstruct of idea will be made later on)

The art of Critical Literacy

Critical Literacy(CL), a new word that i began to know little by little the meaning of it starting this 2012 semester.

Rumors from my seniors that this subject shall be a tough one do crack my heart of achieving 4 flat this sem, but literally when i enter CL class lectured by Mr. Mark, my notion changed into the positive side.

He taught us that CL is all about thinking deeply, logically, emphatically. It said that those who that master CL might do a major transformation in his/her life to a more unique one. So i said, why wait? The introduction itself merely resemble my cracked heart into a much more pleasant shape. I felt complete when i hear about the outcome of the study. It's just indescribably.

From a trembling soul that fear the new mythical like subject, now i'm more energetic to learn the subject deeper for my own benefit. I assume the subject itself is a challenge for me to a better man that can serve the community by providing solutions and such by thinking critically.

As the introduction being protracted, i shall assume Critical Literacy is a new adventure for me to experience and it's my duty to grab the chance to learn it perfectly.