Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Rules of Coffee

"One kopi o kosong upsize, take away. thx"

PERSONAL RULES OF COFFEE CONSUMPTION
1. Only consume coffee if it preceeds exercise (meaning a RUN or GYM session, not an extended walk)
2. Coffee can only be obtained after a walk exceeding 30 minutes. Wake yourself up.
3. Do not use coffee more than 4 times a week.

So I've been trying out coffee as a stimulant to exercise. Findings so far from taking SAFRA Ya Kun's coffee in the morning, roughly 1 hr after waking (before any meals) are as follows:

-The full effects kick in 15-25 minutes after consumption. FOR ME.
-A second wind occurs at the 1h 45min mark.
-While it does not make my body less tired in the gym after a set, it keeps my willpower strong, which will push me to do more. It's like my mind throwing my body around.
-Excellent for endurance training (distance runs)


That's all so far.


-Zan

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Monkey Talk

So I was walking up Mount Faber.

Before entering the canopy-like entrance to the green, upward trek, a new set of signs caught my eye. They provided guidance to dealing with monkeys. One instruction, in particular, was worth significant attention and subsequent over-thinking: "DO NOT CARRY PLASTIC BAGS".

This must have resulted from previous occasions of monkey thievery on the bright, hanging plastic bags of innocent nature-lovers. I wondered what the first time must have been like.
A curious ape must have ventured enough to grab a bag at some point, in lack of visible food items and the presence of a desperately hungry belly. (Or it might have smelt something in the bag, but whatever.)

Grabbing the bag, finding foodstuff, and eating it would encourage this monkey to do the same the next time he/she/it saw a plastic bag. If it were a particularly communal monkey, which is generally the case if you have a family of your species to help feed, it may have communicated to less daring apes that going for the bag is a good idea!

And now I begin over-thinking.

I entertained the thought that the monkeys may have some sort of language between each other, an oo-oo or aa-aa that would make sense only to them. Some kind of verbal structure, within which each unit (like a word or letter) meant something.

But what if that were not the case? what if verbal sounds were just that - meaningless sounds?
How then, would a precise message be conveyed? Telepathy?
Then my imagination kicked in. What if monkeys instead conveyed certain states of emotion to each other that LED to the receiver doing what the communicator wanted the receiver to do? Lets say Thing A wants Thing B to do Action X. Thing A makes a sound that causes Thing B to be in a particular psychological/physical state that leads to the performing of Action X.

In our context of the monkeys and plastic bags, it would be something like..
Monkey George finds out that raiding plastic bags can be awesome source of food. No monkeys in his tribe before him have done so. He wants others to do so. (Because sharing is caring.) George, Monkey Bubbles and Monkey Kong watch from the trees as an innocent auntie dawdles along with two plastic bags. Bubbles and Kong see no visible food, and so do not wish to bother the innocent auntie. George makes some sort of sound conveying the mind state 'suspicion' and 'curiousity'. (maybe it would sound like a questioning "ooo...?" to humans. haha i dunno) Bubbles and Kong may not know it, but hearing this sound makes them wonder what lies within innocent auntie's innocent bags. And they go pester this poor woman.

Come to think of it, even we do such things - implanting certain states of emotion with verbal sounds. The simplest example I can conceive is the war cry. It is, more than anything else, a sound. a sound that ignites excitement and physical tension and vigour in the minds and bodies of others.

I didn't go much further after that, just branched off a little into the implications for sea creatures and things that may be isolated from each other in communication.

My main point is - HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE IF IT WERE INDEED THE CASE? I do think it is totally the case though. But bah what do I know.

ciao



-Zan


 PS: I find that one can say Thought moves like a bolt of lightning. Not in terms of the speed, but moreso of the shape / action. It bolts in one direction (the main thought), briefly stimulating other branches in this process, which bolt (albeit slightly more weakly) in their own directions (secondary / tertiary thoughts).
If the strength of the secondary thoughts was not weakened, and the mind branched infinitely outward into increasingly divergent directions, I would liken this to a fractal-like mind. But I think such a state would be one of insanity / genius, or of a fellow drugged by something that prevented the weakening of secondary synapses from a primary 'bolt' of thought.