Facebook Birthdays

This is another wordy post about yet another phenomenon which I've observed. So if you don't like wordy posts, au revoir.

So, this year was my first year 'officially' using Facebook. I've been in army the past 2 years, and before that Facebook wasn't as popular yet. (maybe it was I was (am) just never into Facebook)
Then when I came out of army, just for fun, I decided to use FB more, uploaded photos, posted on walls, added more friends, etc

Thus, this year was my first ever 'Facebook Birthday'. Let me explain what this is.

A 'Facebook Birthday' is when it is, of course, your birthday, and people wish you on Facebook. Now, because of the feature 'News Feed' in FB when recent news is randomly updated on everyone's pages, people(especially those FB fanatics who refresh page every minute) tend to find out about your birthday because of this.

So the effect is as such:

1) You have either
A) a couple of friends who really remember when your birthday is
B) Some random friends who noted your birthday on your profile page and realised it was coming
C) Whatever type of friend, the point is that they really remember your birthday.

One thing to note is that Facebook does not have birthday reminders.. I think? Unlike Friendster which annoyingly sends you an email when someone's birthday is nearing. Well, maybe it is helpful for some people but I find it annoying.

Ok so these people will post on your wall and wish you 'Happy Birthday!'.

2) Other people will see their posts in their News Feed, and infer that it is your birthday. Now, the 'natural' reaction is to go over to their wall and also post a well wish of happy birthday. I mean, it just takes a few seconds to do so, why not?

3) Step 2 repeats until your birthday ends. Heck, it may even continue the next day when people who didn't log on to FB the previous day sees the News Feed and wish you 'happy belated!' instead.


Now, the odd thing is that, of those people that wished me, the proportions were like this:
10% people i have never spoke to in my life (like, friend's friend so they add me. i don't usually add people)
70% people I haven't spoken to for about 3-5 years.
20% actual friends/acquaintances

The first 10% was the group that really confused me. I have never ever spoken to them and they were wishing me heartily like I was some good friend of theirs. Isn't that just really weird?

Can you imagine you are at a restaurant, then suddenly the next table breaks out in a birthday song. Then after your dinner you walk over to the birthday boy and say 'HEY HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!'
Weird to the max.

You may argue that in this case the person is an entire stranger, while in my case the people were 2nd/3rd degree friends. But you forget the law of '7 degrees of separation'. (There are no 2 people in the world who cannot be connected by 7 or less people) So it's very likely that person at the restaurant is your cousin's friend's brother. Or your teacher's son's friend. Or even your neighbour's classmate.

So my theory of 'Facebook Birthday' is this -

Your Facebook Birthday is the day in which (all sorts of) people will wish you happy birthday, regardless of whether they know you or know when your birthday is.

Am I the only one to see the artificiality here?

In the past, you would have to write a card and mail it a day earlier. Maybe if it was a good friend you would call him/her up to personally wish him. Heck, even more recently, you would send an SMS to wish him happy birthday.
Even before that, you would have to circle birthdays on your personal organizer or calendar.
Maybe rely on your superb prospective memory to remember birthdays (which I'm terrifail at)

Now? Just wait for your FB news feed to update you on someone's birthday and just pop over to type a one liner, taking all of 10 seconds.

There is almost no sentiment attached, no value at all. Are we becoming robots?

Ok you may be cursing me in your mind, going 'walao this alan, people wish him he still complain so much, next time don't wish him anymore'. If you are really this narrowminded and can't see my point... fine, don't wish me anymore.


SO I want to propose a fun experiment to test this theory. I need a group of, say, 10 people? Maybe less, just about 5-6?
So one person will volunteer to be the 'facebook birthday boy/girl'. This person's birthday needs to be at least 4-6 months away/ago so that it is not recent enough to be remembered. And he/she also cannot display his birthday on his FB profile page.

What happens is, the whole group will then post on this person's wall at a chosen day, and wish him/her 'Happy Birthday' when it is NOT him/her birthday.

Then, sit back, and see if the Facebook Birthday effect kicks in.

I would be very interested to see the results of this experiment. Any volunteers? :D

R(21)

EDIT: added alot of thankyou stuff which you would not have read if you read this before 12.40AM on 5th Oct.

lotsa photos in this post so won't be as wordy as my last few posts!


Anyway, I have turned 21!! Rawr. I am an adult now. Don't need parental consent form already hahah.


So... anyway, on Sunday I invited some of my closest friends for a buffet dinner!


@ Parkroyal hotel!
Farrer Park branch :)
I didn't take any photos of it but it's really quite nice and posh-looking.. though it's not that posh la.




The yummy desserts :D
Ok that's about all the food pictures i took.

hahaa sorry la this was before everyone arrived.. when people came I had to entertain them ma. And also busy eating. and serving a handicapped girl. HA. more on that soon.



I was totally not aware of this picture but oh well. Oh the cake is damn weird.. or rather, the writing:

my name is Alan Teo Quan Hau btw.. but the point is.. who puts your full name on a cake??? besides my mom lol. this was totally weird but oh well.



My cousin's son (my nephew? my distant cousin? my couphew? my nepsin?) sang me 'Happy Birthday' in both English and Chinese!! Super cute la haha.
Oh i saw this tweet on OMGfacts before.. do you know that the song 'Happy Birthday' is copyrighted? The song is copyrighted which is why you never see it (or rather, hear it) on TV shows/movies at all.
:)



Beckymonkey!!
I don't know why she look so pretty here. HAHA ok ok always pretty la k. But yea, she looks good in this pic.
And this photo doesn't show it but...



She's on crutches!! Well ok it's only one crutch. So how do i say it. she's on a crutch.
But yea she.. fractured(?) her ankle or something on the last day of her overseas trip by falling down stairs or something. But it is recovering quite fast.. but still needed a crutch to walk around.
And she still came down!!! :D So glad!
I was helping her take food all the way tho. Promised her bf to take care of her haha.

Becky has been my friend since J1.. I was super super close to her in J1 we SMSed like 3msg long msgs like all day lol. Still kept in touch though we weren't as close in the subsequent years, but I always made it a point to meet up with her cos she's always v fun to talk cock with! haha.
Thanks becky for always being there for me when I needed to emo! Thanks for always meeting up just to catch up. Thanks for being so lively and bubbly and monkeyly! (rofl what a word)


She got me a nice OP T-shirt! just wore it yesterday.
And OP stands for Ocean Pacific, not overpowered btw. HAHA ok i think only gamers will understand this.



weiqin!!
Glad she agreed to come, cos she and becky both didn't know anyone else !! So it could be potentially damn weird but i think church people were nice and I managed to keep them entertained the whole night (i think? lol)

weiqin was probably my newest friend at that table, I've only known her for 2 years+! Oh wow. haha. she was from the same class as my ex, so i kinda knew her but never talked to her till after A levels. I'm not very sure how we started talking also.. but I think i liked her wit or something haha. She's v smart! So we always 'argue' though it's not like in a bad way. Really enjoy talking to her and hanging out :)
Thanks weiqin for always being there to hang out when Im bored! Thanks for all the help with the stupid math problems i always cant solve! thanks for entertaining me with your wit!

AND I KNOW THE PHOTOSHOP IS TERRIBAD. There is a reason for it (why i photoshopped us out like that, not why it is terribad. why it is terribad is because I'm just lazy to cut it cleanly) (the red squiggles are just to fill out the empty space on top HA)


She got me a notebook sleeve ( CaseLogic.. so branded! lol) and a CD of one of my favourite singers, Jason Mraz!! But aiya I have like most of the songs already. But she said the purpose of this is to encourage me to buy CDs instead of DLing illegally.. lalala ok I shan't say anything I just had a CNM lecture on Intellectual Property yesterday hee.



Bencheok and daniel!
I think i knew Ben for the 2nd longest at this table though I wasnt really close to him back when i first knew him. I believe before i even joined Bay i was already hanging around with him, weizhong (brother of little weizhi) and darren at random places in church during service haha.
Always enjoy talking about games and playing with him!
Thanks ben for lending me all the games and just being a great gaming companion and friend! Thanks for always being there to hear me gush about boring strategy which i sense you may not be totally interested in sometimes! hahahha.

Danniellllll! I think he more or less springboarded my passion of basketball with his present of.. well, a basketball. Haha. Well it wasn't entirely from him, shared by like 912873 people but he was the one who organized it. He was my cell leader ( ithink) for quite some years in BAY and have always been talking and hanging out with him. Really niceee guy - i hope you find someone special soon dan HAHA.
Thanks for everything mentioned above! Thanks for always organizing the movies and suppers and yada yada. Always have great fellowship when we hang out!

And if you're some unknown passerby who is somehow extremely curious and have read up to this point (or skimmed through these photos and found this guy familiar), and found daniel to be familiar, maybe because he's famous?
http://www.youtube.com/user/jedimindless
His youtube channel, kgo. hahaha.



+cheryl jie!
cheryl was kinda like an older sister to me when I was in secondary school.. we constantly exchanged letters and i was quite close to her during that period! Haven't been interacting with her much lately.. must catch up soon rawr.
Thanks cheryl for being there for me when i was in my crucial developmental phase! I've always wanted a sister (hence you, hence my best fren being a girl, etc) and you kinda fulfiled that role even if just for a couple of years. Wow deep emo sharing. thanks for being so funny and witty!



This book was from daniel too.. and of course cheryl did that creative letter at the side.

Eh seriously when she becomes some rich and famous designer (which she is very likely to, given how creative she is) will the letters she wrote to me become damn valuable? Lololol. Not that I'll sell them but.. haha will be damn cool to have them valued eh.

Anyway, they got me an awesome present which... wait i'll say more after the pics.


Razer DeathAdder!

Razer is a company that makes high-level gaming apparatus.. My previous mouse (not the Microsoft one I'm currently using) was a Razer Krait which i won in a gaming competition
which I TOTALLY loved. It was so nice to use, so perfect.
I used it for countless hours of WoW, and it eventually began to spoil while I was raiding so i had to replace it (left click button spoilt :( )


Ok so anyway, back to Deathadder.

Some booklets inside.


I should totally take stock photos for them. haha.

Ok what this photo fails to show is that the mouse is REALLY BIG. It's like, twice the size of my razerkrait and about 1.5 times the size of my mouse now.

I am not exaggerating! It's supposed to be 'ergonomic' and well it definitely fits your hand perfectly such that you're not really gripping the mouse but resting your entire hand on it (at least for me, cos i have small hands)

I tested this on Sunday for about 2 hours of Starcraft2 and... didn't really like it :( Like it was really hard to get used to and even after 2 hours of repeated use it didn't feel like I was getting any closer to being used to it.

It felt too big, too foreign, too hard to control.
I'm not sure about the future of this mouse.. right now I'm back to my Microsoft mouse, maybe when I have more time I'll force myself to get habituated to the Deathadder. :( Which is really damn sad! I was SO hyped about it yknow, I don't think I was hiding the gleam in my eyes and my huge smile when daniel handed it to me on Sunday.. I REALLY APPRECIATE THE PRESENT OK!
Just that, I'm really not sure if i'll end up using it. :( ugh.

ok that aside. let's move on.


Dom (who also contributed to the mouse. yes, it is quite ex) and Timooo
These two have been my travel buddies the whole xx years I've been going for BAY, really great to talk to just about anything and everything. BAY wouldn't have been the same without their company, and I really treasure their friendship!
Thanks dom for always helping me out in whatever i ask you for! Thanks for the countless bus trips and journeys home!
Thanks timo for being like the nicest guy in the world! Thanks for always being the 'big brother' that everyone can count on, being just so genuine and sincere in your care for everyone!
you both, thanks for the supper times we had too! many more to come!!

Oh, and look what timo got me:


LOLOL it's a LAVA LAMP. like damn cool can? I haven't tried it out yet because i'm afraid it will explode. Ok no not really because of that but because I've been busy with something else which I will mention shortly.
And that little container at the side is a salt container... in his letter to me timo wrote sth about being the 'salt of the earth' as the Bible said, yada yada. So how does the lava lamp relate to that ah. hahaha. Maybe he did write something about it but i forgot.

When I have the lava lamp up and running I'll take pictures of it ok!




And this is some unknown chubby chick i saw at the hotel and decided to ask for a photo.


HAHAHA. okkk no, she is the mystery person who i keep calling 'bestie' in my blog. christabel! My best friend! Known her for.. 8 years? And best friends for about 5. Haven't been hanging out with her lately though cos the poor girl is so busy with school work and her mad tuition (which is finally ending ... it's damn ridiculous la she has 4 hours straight of tuition on SUNDAYS yknow. -_- )
Thanks for being my best friend in the world xoxo.I don't say much ok because if i do i think need a few paragraphs. haha. Hang out more soon kayyss.

She got me not one, but TWO shirts


haha sorry for the lousy way of presenting the shirts but I really dont know a better way besides hangeronthewindow. I like the 2nd one! The first one looks like any of the 129387 ones i have so.. hahah. We'll see how i look in them soon..


Ok, we have come to the focal point of this entry. Ok no it is unfair to say that because I love all my other friends too. But this is the focal point of the presents, at least.

Ok first, introduction:


This is alwyn lim chau hwee or pewi, as my church friends know him by because of me haha. I still call him pewi now anyway.
He was, like me, a true blue Saint, from SAJS->SASS->SAJC
So i kinda knew him for.. almost 16 years? wow that's damn long.
I only became good frens with him in like secondary school, as he was in my 'clique', and we still hung out in JC+army via basketball, games, etc.
Super nice dude, seems shy but actually he talk damn alot one HA.
Thanks for being a reliable friend and so fun to talk to! I'm not very close to alot of guys but you are one of the anomalies haha. Thanks for always being there to play ball or just talk cock and stuff!


Well so when he reached the place he passed me a small package for my present, and was very cryptic about it.

He kept saying 'Have fun and enjoy this.. LITERALLY' and 'sure very useful ..can use in school.. quite good'
Well I really had no idea la. Like i thought was some toy or something or some book? It's just a small rectangle package the size of a small book. I shook it and it made no sound.. and i asked him what it was but he refused to tell me and said go home then open.

So i went home eventually after everyone left, and sat down with my presents


So exciting, like Christmas gift exchange like that. Just that I didn't have to give any gifts haha.

So as you can see, pewi's little box-like gift was there in front of everything, and because he piqued my curiosity, i picked it up first to open it.
So as i tore open the packaging.. guess what was inside.

A book? no
a diary? no
a bar of soap? no (lol this was really one of my thoughts when i first held on to it)
some sex toy? no (ALSO ANOTHER ONE. because of the way he kept saying 'you'll have fun/enjoy it!'!! it sounded v cheeky HAHA.)
A box? yes.

Wait, a box? Yes, a box.
.
.

So what was in the box?
.
.
.





OH MY GOD.
WHAT THE F-

I seriously don't know which of these 3 words flew through my head more in the next 30 minutes, probably the first phrase though cos I'm not so vulgar (haha) but.. OH MY GOD.

Let me locate my SMS to him immediately then (i tried to call him but he didn't pick up)

"OH MY GOD PEWI. OH MY GOD. I JUST OPENED YOUR PRESENT.. AND I DONT DARE TOUCH (rofl what a pun!) IS THIS REAL???!!?? WHY YOU SPEND SO MUCH!!? Omg. I'm in shock now. Pewi!!! How can lidat!!!"

as you can see I was in total disbelief and also shock and everything. And also feeling damn bad la! mainly because i bought him a damn lousy present in comparison (which i feel too ashamed to type here) for his birthday earlier this year.. which is mainly also because i am terrifail at choosing presents :(
I felt like a damn shitty friend la!

His reply was something along the lines of 'i wanna get you a 32gb but out of stock' (-insert more OMGWTFs here-) and also to enjoy the itouch blabla. quite long i shan't bother typing it out.
And my following SMS

"I FEEL LIKE A SHITTY FRIEND NOW!!! OMG. OMGOMG. im literally stunned. urs was the first one i opened and once i opened i havent touched anything else yet . Cos I am still stunned. Pewi!!! I wanna hug you now. But i feel damn bad also. Omg"

and later on he came online and here was our opening conversation:



and



Like wow seriously. What did i do to deserve such an awesome friend?
I feel SO blessed now, to have such a friend.

Like ok, i love all my other friends who i invited to the dinner. Heck, they are my closest friends in the world. but what pewi said/did... I TOUCH(ed) LEH.
hahahaha ok i can make the bad puns forever, let's just look at that chio thing more.




Ridiculously slim and sleek and elegant and chio and stylish.

pewi got me an iTouch (4th gen!) (8GB) which cost like, ALOT. It's definitely the most expensive present I've ever got, whether from one or a group of people. And it's just from him.
And 4th gen is damn cool la, it has a pretty crisp camera..supposedly able to record HD videos! I'm gonna try it now

Hmm this looks just average when uploaded but it looked pretty damn good when viewed on the itouch itself.. maybe it's because of the Retina display "display’s pixel density is so high your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. "
it's really super sharp and clear.
And.. it uploaded from the itouch itself in like.. 20seconds? amazing!

Yea so there's an amazing camera in both front AND back (wth! normally the front camera is shitty quality like my N97.. how come they can be both as good one! The video was taken with the front camera btw)

And.. do you know that this is so new that most stores haven't even stocked up on accessories for it yet? Lol! i went around today to buy a case and a screen protector and took FOREVER. I had to use my phone to google for nearest apple shop because i was at Funan and after checking out 3 levels there wasn't a single shop selling accessories for iTouch 4th gen!

And with my googling i found out that there are THREE types of Apple shops..
Apple Authorised Reseller , Apple Store , Apple Premium Reseller
You can go here
http://www.apple.com/sg/reseller/location.php?did=8&keyword=city+hall
to see the difference between each.. just click on the different categories they have an explanation the difference.

Yea so I found out there was a PREMIUM RESELLER at funan that was at the 5th floor and they had what i wanted so yay.
But i'm still not satisfied! I want like a pouch like thing that can cover the screen also. Right now it's just the back case. Hope they make more accessories for iTouch4thGen soon. (can't use the other Gens one cos 4G is much slimmer than the rest )

Yea anyway so... where was i. THANKS PEWI. You are awesome, really. And thanks to all my friends who came for the dinner! You guys are my closest friends in the world, and there's nothing i treasure more (besides maybe the itouch.. HAHA OK NO IM KIDDING) thanks for making this 21yearold boy adult very happy :)

AND one more thing that i MUST say. One thing i did regret about having it at this nice hotel is that it had to be quite exclusive. I obviously can't invite too many people because it's quite expensive!
There are quite a handful of people that I kinda wanted to invite but couldn't because of this limit, though I also am really grateful for having them in my life. And some never really keep in touch also already.
So.. I see who wish me then I'll mention here la HA.

Okok this is extremely long I shall end here. K bye.

philosophical 2

I wrote something to post in my Philo forums that I thought was quite interesting. I added in a 'context' mini section so that people who do not take my philo module will understand it. It's a rather long write-up, so.. be prepared :p

Context:
There is an article about 'hedonism', which is the concept that humans are only interested in pursuing pleasure and avoiding suffering. (this is a very loose definition, there are more sub-categories of this and further elaboration/clarification that I won't go into, you just need to know this definition to understand what I'm going to say)

So the author(Roger Crisp) presents an analogy of an Experience Machine to counter hedonism. Let's suppose there is this new scientific device, called the Experience Machine. What it can do is when you are plugged into it, it allows you to experience all the pleasures that you would experience in the real world, with no suffering at all. In fact, it lets you experience this forever and ever. And you won't know that you are actually plugged in, you will think it is all real.
Will you want to plug in?

Most people would say 'no', and Crisp suggests some reasons for this, that it is because you want to have the feeling of accomplishment of doing something for real.. and some other reasons I don't quite get.
I didn't get why people would say no though. And as such, my dissertion begins:
~~~~~~~~~~~~

So we all know the Experience machine analogy - and the question is
"Do you want to plug into the experience machine?"
A) Yes, I want to plug in
B) No, I do not want to plug in, I want to stay in my present life.

and most of us would choose B, and NOT to be plugged into such a machine. And why? The reason the article gave was that we desired the accomplishment, yada yada. Whatever your reason is, just keep it in your head at the moment. If you would choose A, you don't have to read on, you are on my side already.

So now, what if I presented a reverse situation - instead of asking whether you want to plug into the experience machine, i tell you that you ARE already in the experience machine. The question now is,
"Do you want to unplug from the experience machine?"
C) Yes, I want to unplug
D) No, I want to stay in my present life and stay plugged in.

If you had chosen C, and your first answer was A, the contradiction is obvious. You need to rethink one of your responses, something is wrong, you can't both want to plug in and plug out of the machine it doesn't make sense.

And if you had chosen B, then D, the contradiction is there though not so straightforward. While your choice of being in the machine (whether you are plugging in or plugging out) changes, the underlying theme for both responses is that you want to stay in your present life. If you are in this camp, hold that thought, my response to you is below.

And what if you chose B, then C? The contradiction is more subtle, but still there. If i rephrase the options and put them side by side it should become obvious:
1) You do not want to plug into a machine because you prefer your current life
2) You want to unplug from your current life

1 and 2 are the opposite of each other. If you had chosen to not be plugged in because current factors influence you to prefer your current state of the world, then it wouldn't make sense that when you find out that you are in fact plugged in, you suddenly detest it and want out of it. The prior factors that made you choose this world should also make you choose NOT to unplug from it.

So what is the real issue here? It seems to me that it is a problem of REALITY. As we are brought up, we are taught Science, to believe in what we can observe. Thus, REALITY becomes a forefront concept to us. We seek to have REALITY. It's not just about having pleasure anymore, it's about our perception that we are having pleasure for real.
For those who took option B and D:
You chose not to plug into the machine because you thought what you had was reality.
You then chose not to unplug because the world that you were in is your perceived reality.

Now it needs to be clarified that it is our PERCEIVED REALITY that we want, not the 'actual' reality (as in the case of when asked to unplug and you decide to unplug)
After all, it does not make any logical sense that if your perception of your current reality is so real that you choose option B to stay in your current state BUT then choose option C later on, to choose to go to the 'actual' reality, because YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS LIKE. If your decision-making process had chosen B in the first place, the same decision-making process SHOULD rightly choose option D. The reason of 'I want to unplug because I want to experience reality' is invalid because staying plugged in has been, and is your reality, and thus, should be your preferred option.
It is therefore logically flawed to pick B and then C.

So what exactly is reality? Reality is merely a perception. An optical illusion is a reality (though misconceived one). A magic trick is reality to the audience, but not to the magician. A dream is sometimes, in a sense, reality, when we don't realise we are dreaming. Which is this case of the experience machine.

So how does this tie back to the hedonism argument? If we remember what the Experience Machine argument was arguing for, I believe it was to say that pleasure is NOT everything we want, since most of us would rather not be plugged in (Option B) and hence we don't really just want pleasure.
However, i propose that the reason for not wanting to plug in is because we desire REALITY. It is not about experiencing pleasure, it is about perceiving that the pleasure we are experiencing is real. That is what we all want.

Thus, the whole point of this is to show you that A is not that bad a choice after all, assuming you perceive the Experience machine world as your only and 'real' reality. And that choosing option B does not mean you are against hedonism, you still want pleasure, just that you want to perceive that it is real.

OK I'm done. I hope all this makes sense, I did not have a conclusion in mind when I started writing this, I just wanted to get the contradiction about choosing B then C out there (as that was the concensus in my tutorial) and see what people have to say about it. Of course, if you have things to comment about on the rest of my argument, please do so.