TwIsTeD Reflections

There is a growing phenomenon as the sport of basketball slowly increasing in popularity. People began to view basketball not just as a sport for enjoyment, for spectators and players alike, but as a mathematical puzzle or problem. They begin to come up with statistical aspects that seem to determine the production of the game. Points, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals become part of the numbers game as people try to take the complex sport and break it down to simpler, easier to understand models.

Yet, anomalies started to occur more and more often. The game of basketball refused to be understood. True enough, the stats showed a bit of the efficiency of the players, but it never showed how a player can benefit his team, basketball being a perennial team sport. The current statistical model was also inadequate to show the defensive aspect of the game; blocks and steals couldnt be a true indicator.

So the statisticians, like ESPN's John Hollander, introduced new revolutionary statistics to try to explain away the game. PER, efficient field goal percentage, +/- were new statistical aspects in the team and individual level. Opponent field goal percentage (the 3 point line, in the paint and the mid-range) and forced turnovers and overall defensive rating was introduced to bread down the defensive aspect. Pace factor was also included to level up the discrepancies of how pace influences the outcome of performances and wins/loses.

Yet, statistical anomalies appeared time and time again, defying the completeness of the models. Players like Shane Battier, as stated in this brilliantly written article by Micheal Lewis, seemed to be helping his team without posting any significant statistical impact. In his article, he writes:

"The virus that infected professional baseball in the 1990s, the use of statistics to find new and better ways to value players and strategies, has found its way into every major sport. Not just basketball and football, but also soccer and cricket and rugby and, for all I know, snooker and darts — each one now supports a subculture of smart people who view it not just as a game to be played but as a problem to be solved. Outcomes that seem, after the fact, all but inevitable — of course LeBron James hit that buzzer beater, of course the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl — are instead treated as a set of probabilities, even after the fact. The games are games of odds. Like professional card counters, the modern thinkers want to play the odds as efficiently as they can; but of course to play the odds efficiently they must first know the odds. Hence the new statistics, and the quest to acquire new data, and the intense interest in measuring the impact of every little thing a player does on his team’s chances of winning. In its spirit of inquiry, this subculture inside professional basketball is no different from the subculture inside baseball or football or darts. The difference in basketball is that it happens to be the sport that is most like life."

He continues:

There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. On the baseball field, it would be hard for a player to sacrifice his team’s interest for his own. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team one: by doing what’s best for himself, the player nearly always also does what is best for his team. “There is no way to selfishly get across home plate,” as Morey puts it. “If instead of there being a lineup, I could muscle my way to the plate and hit every single time and damage the efficiency of the team — that would be the analogy. Manny Ramirez can’t take at-bats away from David Ortiz. We had a point guard in Boston who refused to pass the ball to a certain guy.” In football the coach has so much control over who gets the ball that selfishness winds up being self-defeating. The players most famous for being selfish — the Dallas Cowboys’ wide receiver Terrell Owens, for instance — are usually not so much selfish as attention seeking. Their sins tend to occur off the field.

It is in basketball where the problems are most likely to be in the game — where the player, in his play, faces choices between maximizing his own perceived self-interest and winning. The choices are sufficiently complex that there is a fair chance he doesn’t fully grasp that he is making them.

Taking a bad shot when you don’t need to is only the most obvious example. A point guard might selfishly give up an open shot for an assist. You can see it happen every night, when he’s racing down court for an open layup, and instead of taking it, he passes it back to a trailing teammate. The teammate usually finishes with some sensational dunk, but the likelihood of scoring nevertheless declined. “The marginal assist is worth more money to the point guard than the marginal point,” Morey says. Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much. Players love the spectacle of a ball being swatted into the fifth row, and it becomes a matter of personal indifference that the other team still gets the ball back. Dikembe Mutombo, Houston’s 42-year-old backup center, famous for blocking shots, “has always been the best in the league in the recovery of the ball after his block,” says Morey, as he begins to make a case for Mutombo’s unselfishness before he stops and laughs. “But even to Dikembe there’s a selfish component. He made his name by doing the finger wag.” The finger wag: Mutombo swats the ball, grabs it, holds it against his hip and wags his finger at the opponent. Not in my house! “And if he doesn’t catch the ball,” Morey says, “he can’t do the finger wag. And he loves the finger wag.” His team of course would be better off if Mutombo didn’t hold onto the ball long enough to do his finger wag. “We’ve had to yell at him: start the break, start the break — then do your finger wag!”

Sorry for not blogging, my schedule has not put me in that contemplative mood suitable for my blogging, and it seems that it will not let up. Damn exams are approaching close and closer. Well, with that...

Emotions are essential in dictating our actions, our decisions. In fact, for some of us, it is the primary driving force of how we act. A study was done on people who do not feel any emotion, caused by damage to the part of the brain that is responsible for it. It was shown that, in terms of decisions, they were indecisive. Worse than indecisive, in fact, since they simply cannot make decisions that go beyond logical thinking, like "do you prefer the red dress or the green one?".

Yet, despite that, our efficiency-driven culture emphasizes on the fact that we should repress emotions, to be detached from yourself, so to speak. It is true, powerful emotions normally deprives the person the ability to think rationally, rendering that person "inefficient". The best thinkers and scientists of our time were known to be abnormally detached.

How we deal with these emotions are also intricately linked to our character that defines us as unique individuals. Do we swallow our emotions? Do we use one emotion to cover another? Or maybe we just wear our emotions on our sleeves, ready to cry, laugh and jump for joy at the drop of the hat? The strange things is that we all have the same emotions, yet, because of our character, react so differently to that same feeling.

I have come to the conclusion that emotion cannot be controlled directly by our will. It is how we truly feel, even if we try to deny its existence. So, to say "don't feel sad" is kinda contradictory of what emotions are.

However, emotion is also depends on perspective, which lies the true form of control. Although we cant change the way we feel, we can change the perspective to alter the way we feel. And we do it so often in our everyday lives that we are not even aware of it. Take the concept of 'sour grapes' for example. We can truly desire for some thing, yet if it proves to be unattainable, we dismiss it as flawed or perhaps not worthy of our attention after all, thereby changing our perspective to change our emotions.

Many would say that it is not being true to yourself. That is, to me, a strange statement. What is this 'yourself'? How do you know if it is truly you. To be true to yourself means to accept whatever emotion you initially feel, good or bad, without exception. Why accept emotions like anger or sadness if it does nothing to help you?

Im not saying sadness or anger are never useful. There are times anger is needed, like standing up for urself for instance. Sometimes sadness is required, to get in touch with another fellow human being for example. Yet, there are times these emotions just leave you devastated, when the issue does not merit such an emotion. For example, a girl who cries when her dress gets torn, or a student that angry when he heard he got AAAB for his A levels (that wont be me, like ever).

The only way to NOT feel emotion is to truly detach your self away from your body. This out-of-body experience is the same as viewing the world with indifference, an emotional retreat. It is probably the ultimate change in perspective. It can be useful, in dealing with problems that affect one in a great deal. However, a word of caution, prolonged use can actually cause damage to a person's psyche. It can create an apathetic view of life, which lead many to suicide.

So how can we get rid of excessive emotions? Like i said before, we cant. But we can alter the way we feel by changing our perspective. We can think "Hey, this dess is just a piece of cloth anyway, why go overboard?" Or "Well, this result just delays me a little further in the long run, it wont prevent me from being successful if I work hard." In fact, most problems that seem to affect us so turn out to be insignificant or inconsequential in the bigger view of things. So while we must enjoy the little things in life, we must also be able to take a step back to get a different perspective, especially when we are down.

P.S. Hey deb, this post is for you. If you are reading this, hope you feel better and give a little smile.

Ideas are very strange. They are invisible, intangible, ethereal. It is useless, yet so very powerful. Ideas are what drives the human race. It is the birth of innovation and the start of apathy. Ideas are concepts used to create works of arts or wonderful inventions. It is used to solved complicated problems and serve as inspiration for an individual, a country or the human race.

Which is why I value ideas alot. Im a writer by nature, and ideas are essential for my work. It was also the basis of my very childhood. Which is why I cannot forgive any action taken to destroy a good idea. What do I mean? Ideas are useless if no action is accompanied by it. Therefore, the action has to live up to the quality of the idea or concept that was imagined or created. If a writer has a great concept or storyline, yet has poor command of english, or woeful attention to detail, the idea is irrevocably destroyed, never to be recovered again. Sure, another can take up the idea to renovate and redo, but part of the quality of the idea is lost already. People can brand it as a copy, or simply dismiss the work as the first piece was bad. The idea has lost its value and its originality that made it so very valuable in the first place.

Which is the reason why i cannot imagine how beautiful concept can be so utterly, so terribly ripped apart in the monstosity of the movie called 'Inkheart'. It was as if it was taken from a 10 year old child's writing. The acting, in my opinion, was brilliantly done, especially by Brandon Fraser, the camera-play and casting was also above average. The writing and plot, however, was so horribly screwed that I wondered how i managed to waste 10 bucks in a rare midnight movie with my girlfriend on that piece of shit.

And the concept was wonderful. In my hands, or anybody's hands for that matter, together with such a budget, i could have created a wonderful piece, or at least infinitely better than the current trash. It was simple, a gifted individual with the ability to create what he reads out loud into real life. A clever, unique, original concept. Yet, it was borne through a fool of a writer. Given a chance, I swear I will shoot the fellow who destroyed it.

The writer couldnt decide a theme for the movie. Was it a romance movie? An action movie? Or a fantasy movie? He flirted from one theme to the next, never completing any of it. As he did with the storyline which had barely any coherence to it. Characters are supremely incomplete, sprouting out abilities that leave the poor viewer completely bewildered.

How on earth did Brandon Fraser's daughter suddenly become a silvertongue (those people with the ability to bring fiction to reality)? How did that ali baba character suddenly learn to blow fire from Dustfinger? Why did brandon fraser jump, run and hide to save his wife when all he needed to do was bring some books (like maybe a war book with lots of guns?) and just bloody use his ability? How did the mother get read out of a book that wont contain her name in it at all? Why must a person be sucked in as a replacement (which i think is a pretty lame idea)? What the f#$% is story of inkheart (inkheart is the story most referred to in the movie) in the first place? Why must they go through all the stupid trouble to go find the author of Inkheart to get the manuscript of the book, and not bloody hell use it in the first place? How come Dustfinger can be so stupid? How on earth did the writer manage to suddenly declare ali baba to be in love w brandon fraser's daughter? How on earth did the bloody motherf%^king writer manage to create this piece of $#!t and who's the dumbass ignoramus that approved it?

Most ironical thing about it? It was a movie about books *starts sobbing*.

Okay... I think im done ranting. Seriously, I recommend all to go watch it to c how bad it is. Dun pay for it though, go download off the net. Its not stealing, cos it is not worth to pay a bloody cent for it.

Update: I just heard that this wasnt even an original idea but an adaptation of another film. Which makes it that much worse. You take another person's idea and you destroy it. It wasnt even your own.


P.S. On a slightly more cheerful note... This is damn funny. (Warning: more cursing that this post)

Albert Einstein once said, "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." That much is true. We all have made stupid choices in our lifetimes, all we needed to do was to learn from it.

Now here is the problem with tradition, it forces people to make stupid decisions again and again. It is no coincidence that I'm blogging about this on Chinese New Year, as it is always around this period when I see superstition and tradition hamper the actions of goodwill and friendship.

Now, many people, my girlfriend included, view that I'm being insensitive to various cultures and their respective traditions. I would like to ask, "How so?" My view is that tradition have to serve a purpose, even if it is a small purpose, without adversely affecting other people. Tradition for the sake of tradition is devoid of meaning.

For example, the exchanging of red packets is to show a form of generosity to a younger generation, which in turn is reciprocated by a respect to the elderly. That is a purpose. However, when giving out of hong pao degenerates into money counting, suspicion and spoilt brats, I say just do away with the tradition.

Tradition, like laws and rules, also tend to lose its purpose after an extended period. Times change, a fact we all have to accept; technology and livelihood is fluid in the long run. The thing about laws is there is at least an 'expiry date' where at the end of the 'expiry date', the law will be reviewed. Tradition does not have such an expiry date, as one tradition presses the next to follow suit.

One such chinese tradition is the burning of 'hell notes' during the 7th month. The concept of the hungry ghost festival itself is ridiculous and borne from superstition. It is during this 15 days where lots of paper is being burnt in metal drums as dark clouds being spewed into the sky. People with asthma, or highly superstitious, hide indoors. And for what? To 'bribe' our own ancestors not to haunt us. If the purpose is to pay respects to the dead, it is excessive. Joss sticks is just as traditionally accepted and more environmentally friendly.

Another example is the concept of not going to 'bai nian' within the year if a member of the family has passed away, with the suspicion of spreading the bad luck. A family had insisted mine to come over, even after the death of my maternal grandfather. Yet there were stringent rules. My family was not allowed to greet them with auspicious Chinese New Year greetings, nor were we allowed to exchange mandarin oranges or red packets. Superstition trumps over relevant tradition. Could you imagine the awkwardness when my family was greeted at the door and we couldn't say 'gong xi fa chai!"

We should never ever let superstition take over our own actions. It invites paranoia as it allows events outside our own control into our world and we try our best to control it. Many make no sense and is truly ridiculous. Chun told me once her family invited a renowned feng shui man to redesign her house. The result was pleasant and she truly felt more at ease with her surroundings. However, she noted that it was a clever usage of space that allowed the room to feel more spacious, or to allow more sunlight into a dark room to make the space more comfortable. Nothing to do with the entry of good luck through the arrangements of the furniture.

Let me give you one more example before I wrap it up. Why isit the roads in singapore slow to a crawl whenever there is an accident? Nope, the cars are no longer blocking the road; the traffic police is quite efficient in improving the flow of traffic. The reason is because of stupid drivers slowing down to catch the number plate of the vehicles involved in the accident, for 4D. The belief that good luck would be borne from bad, in a screwed understanding of 'ying' and 'yang', propelled this ridiculous behaviour, and causing many cranky Singaporean drivers to be late.

So i say to hell, pun intended, with auspicious dates, designs and numbers. Gone should we change the way we act because of superstition. All tradition that hold no meaning should be ignored immediately.



On a side note,

HAPPY CNY EVERYBODY!

The year was 2005, and the Lakers were coming off a horrible season where they missed the playoffs for the first time in years. It was a year indicative of the Lakers rebuilding their team. Kobe Bryant, the lakers' lone all-star was not getting any younger, and team had to be built to win NOW. Therefore, the 2005 first round draft pick became all the more important for the rebuilding process.

Thats where the Lakers shocked everyone. They had to win NOW and therefore many thought the lakers would pick an NBA-ready player, with little training or nurturing required to be ready for the tough NBA court. Instead, the Lakers went with 17-year-old Andrew Bynum straight out of high school, making him the youngest NBA player picked in all time.

Andrew Bynum was born in Oct 27, 1987 at the height of 7 foot tall. His size did not compensate for this height, looking scrawny next to other NBA centers. His selection left many scratching their heads in wonder. He was extremely young and immature, an obvious project that could very well fail. At the 10th pick, he was considered a waste of a draft pick. Many criticized his work ethic and his passion for the game.

For myself, I was intrigued. I decided to reserve my judgements till Ive at least seen him play. And when I did, I was impressed. He was called into the game by hall-of-fame coach phil jackson to go help defend the uber-dominant shaquille o'neal, being the only player with enough height to match what many considered the best center of all time.

he was humiliated almost immeadiately after entering the game. Home-schooled by the NBA veteran wanting to prove no young'un is going to come into his home. Shaq muscled with bynum, dunking over him with such force that left poor bynum sprawled on the floor. Everyone not a laker fan laughed at the sight, and every laker fan sighed in what seemed to be an expected result.

Something incredible happened after that. Bynum just got up and sprinted down the floor, fire in his eyes. He positioned himself at the high-post and demanded the ball. Kobe passed it to him, and after two dribbles, he spun so quickly that the heavier Shaq could not catch up, slamming the ball in, to the delight of all Laker fans. And down the floor, he gave shaq a message that he was not in the least bit intimidated. Shaq got pissed.

Don't believe me? Here's a video.


No passion my ass.

Bynum soon developed a work ethic that impressed perennial work-horse, Kobe Bryant. He matured rapidly, and help shoulder the lakers into becoming a contender after just three years of rebuilding, extremely fast for any team. His latest game against the Clippers as I'm writing this, he went super-nova for 42 points, 15 rebounds and 3 blocks. This one young man, right now at a age of 21, that Im going to keep track of.

I was actually planning to write on the influences of NBA coaching in TwiSteR's Lakers, much as I know you guys hate to read about the NBA on my blog. But the up coming exams have forced my hand to discuss something closer to my heart of my favourite subject, perhaps, of all time: International Relations. Furthermore, tis post comes just before the inauguration of America's first black president and during Israel's invasion into the Gaza; talk about sweet timing.

Why did i mention these particular history-making events? Well, because Im going to discuss terrorism, the intimate topic in any American election. Terrorism, to put it simply, is the act of using fear to achieve a certain end. As a result, when we speak of terrorists, it sometimes depends on the context of the source. For example, a Palestine bomber would be labeled as a terrorist in Israel, but definitely not among the Hamas, who consider their act simply as a following of their Jihad against Israel.

No topic of terrorism is ever complete without mention the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, when George W. Bush pushed for his own jihad war on terrorism and created the infamous Bush Doctrine. On a side note, the fact that such an idiot managed to get himself elected for 2 terms is, to me, proof of the ignorance of the American people when it involves in choosing the most important man in the world. Thank god for Obama.

Anyway, it is interesting on the way Bush treated the September 11 attack as if it was an attack against his own ego, pushing almost immediately against the Afghanistan's Taliban regime, and subsequently against Iraq's Saddam Hussein. It was an ego move, to say the least. Americans wanted some form of action, and the president decided to attack and invade the countries that are seemingly involved in it.

Why you may ask. Many IR scholars have stressed the need for America to protect its interest, and to do so in a decisive manner. However, it seemed to me that the attack on both these sovereign nations was akin to taking action for the sake of taking action. That is to me worse that not doing anything.

Well, the US payed the price for it. The backlash of anti-Americanism within the Islam-centric has give the radicals a great amount of fuel. Any form of 'moderate' talk would be considered siding with the infidels. Fresh recruits swarmed to join terrorist cells across the world, making the world an even more dangerous place to live in.

It seems unfair that the world has to pay for one man's stupid mistakes, but that is the reality that we must live in. Mistakes have to be learnt. Terrorism is not about countries fighting wars against each other. It is intangible, with no visible borders or frontlines. A war on terrorism is basically a war on ideals. In other words, the use of arms would only help the terrorists.

So what must we do? For one, we must educate ourselves to the point of view of the terrorists. There must be a reason for them to bomb and kill. That reason must be attacked, for without that ideal, the bomb will never go off. We cannot follow Bush's example and try to pummel the problem on the head with a crudgel like a common bully.

America views itself as the benign hegemon, the upright and virtuous superhero in the frightening international anarchy of the world. Many believe, this is inherently important to maintain stability in the international system. I sincerely disagree. I think that to depend on one country for 'leadership' would be jolly good if the rest of the countries are in on it, but drastically frightful if a large number of states disagree.

It is like having a leader without being democratically elected. Ironic. America's presidency is the single most undemocratic election in the world: a few hundred million people voting for 6.7 billion people. So while i do not agree that if the international system would remain as an international anarchy without a hegemon is good for peace, meaning using a balance of power as the sole source to keep countries in check, I do not think that a hegemon would be that much of a stabilizing factor to be that much different. Not if half of the world do not see the US eye to eye.

The Bush Doctrine is just another example of America striking out to protect the 'values' of Democracy and Capitalism (as if other economic and political systems have a 'lack of values'). Other incidences include the Cold War (where it could have led to a serious nuclear-themed war), the Vietnam War (where if the US just left things as they were, Vietnam would still not threaten), the Gulf War, etc.

The question is whether we should follow suit or not. As a sovereign state, we have the right to take a stand. Each country does. That is not to say we should adopt anti-americanism, as i believe that the States as the hegemon is inherently better than say, China, as the reigning superpower. But each states government must not follow leadership blindly, and try to tackle international issues, like terrorism, the smart way, and together.

One f the recurring theme in the latest popular batman movie, the dark knight, is order and chaos which i didnt touch on in my post of it. Order and chaos is philosophically related to how we judge our morality, if it is based on the structuring of society and its rules, or lack thereof.

The Joker had a point to prove. That without the law, human beings would morally degenerate. That without an enforcement of order available, such as the police or the batman, we would blow each other up at the very first chance at it. And he was almost proven correct.

One particularly captivating scene for me is when the joker the joker spoke to Harvey to give him that "little push" over the edge.


The thing about chaos is that it is tempting. The proof is out there, when people go to clubs to loosen up. They drink, dance, let their hair down and basically be a totally complete person. A person without restrictions or rules. Chaos. In that very scene, the joker tempts Harvey with that very chaos, except to a greater extent, appealing to the dark side within Harvey we all know is evident. Leaving things up to chance is basically chaos bounded by the rules of reality, which the joker claims to be "fair".

So the morality of caving in to chaos is apparent in everyone of us. What holds us back? What keeps us in order. Rules, definitely play a part. What sort of rules? Rules, such as the law, does play apart. The question, however, becomes very important if the law is not enforced. Do we become deranged animals, murdering, raping and stealing at the drop of that realisation?

I believe the more important rules are those that we, or at least I, hold close to our own heart. In other words, our morality. It exists in each one of us as the tenets against this chaos, which is so tempting. Should we abandon these tenets and yet still follow the rules because of the law, we can safely say that we are being ruled by fear. The fear of being caught for example. And chaos breeds from fear.

Another thing about chaos is that it is spontaneous. It doesnt require thinking, or rationalising. Which makes it all the more appealing. Who enjoys the process of tedious thinking compared to spontaneous chaos, especially when one experiences both?

Fortunately for us, we have both these tenets and the spontaneity, and a balance has to be reached. I never said chaos was evil or bad. It is like fire: warm and refreshing if controlled, death and destruction if not.Too much order in our lives would mean the lack of spontaneity, the lack of fun, making our lives all the more mundane. Too much chaos, and then we see our lives, or worse other lives, receive the consequences.



All of which, in the end, boils down to our actions. Our actions shows that the tenets exists, not the other way around. In order words, our actions are not borne from these tenets, but validate them. Which is why a man who steals, seldom stops stealing. Which is why a man who murders also find it difficult to stop. On the other hand, the action of NOT stealing shows that the tenets of order does exist in a certain person, and making it easier for him NOT to steal the next time around, validating the morality or rules which we bind ourselves to.

So back to the Dark Knight, the eternal battle of Batman vs The Joker represents the fight between order and chaos. The element of the law is largely ignored, cos it simply doesnt matter. What matters is the rules we bind ourselves to, which is what batman represents, an incorruptible manifestation of the tenets within ourselves. That opposed to the Joker who "just wants to see the world burn".