The Musings of Michael Ban

I just read something awesome, which I will leave here without too much discussion. An 84-year old lady is the only resident of America’s smallest town. She is the mayor and town clerk and secretary, the only voter and taxpayer, and her taxes maintain the three lampposts and running water for the only business in town, her little tavern. It’s such a cool story. Worth a read if you have time.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180129-welcome-to-monowi-nebraska-population-1

FIRST OF ALL, THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS POST. SO IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN “THE LAST JEDI” YET, STOP RIGHT NOW, BOOKMARK THIS POST, AND COME BACK WHEN YOU’VE SEEN THE MOVIE.

Someone’s finally done it. The Empire Strikes Back has been topped, in my opinion, as the best Star Wars movie ever. The apprentice is finally the master. Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi is an absolutely cracking movie, far better than I expected, and full of twists and turns that I never saw coming. Some movies show you everything in the trailers; director Johnson is a master at keeping you off-balanced – even during the movie you had no idea what was going to happen next. And nothing in the show felt really contrived or fake. There was no “oh, this is the big hero moment where one person will save the day”, or “yes, if you do this one little thing, the big bad whatever will be defeated even though it is so powerful.” That kind of crap is thankfully completely missing and not missed in this movie. I was wondering what Johnson had done to impress the bigwigs at Lucasfilm so much, that they handed him creative control over a brand new future Star Wars trilogy. And now I know. The movie he made was unbelievably good on so many levels. How so? I’ll mostly be comparing the most recent Star Wars effort, The Force Awakens, by the also very talented J J Abrams, against this latest movie.

Before I go further, I feel that I need to address something. It seems like a lot of “hardcore” Star Wars fans were angry with the movie. Not all, but a fairly sizable number. Some are even saying that Star Wars has been “ruined” and that they will never go back to Star Wars again. I’m sure they won’t be carrying those threats out. That’s the problem with social media – people post all sorts of angry stuff online in the immediacy of an experience, without stopping to give it some further thought. Most of these people I expect will wake up a few days later and realise that they over-reacted. Unfortunately, their initial, really nasty, feedback will remain on the internet for a long time.

Let me take one example of a place with lots of negative fan feedback. Many of the fans on Rotten Tomatoes were disappointed, even angry at the movie. It’s quite bizarre, in that I’ve never seen a movie where the reviewers have given such a high score (93%) but the public gave such a low score (58%). OK, comparatively low; some movies will kill for a 58% approval rating. Reading through the comments by the public, it appears that many of them don’t just think that the movie isn’t good. They actually feel that the movie is horrible.

I have to say, I completely disagree with that (duh, see the title of this post). These fans have their opinion, I have mine. And the majority of the fans who posted there (58%, maybe more, if you disregard the people who posted multiple versions of their negative comments) agree with me. The ones who said the movie was bad were mostly angry that the movie wasn’t made according to their expectations. Many of them used a variant of the line “I’ve been a Star Wars fan for xyz years and this is the first movie I was disappointed in.” Really? Then they’ve got quite a short memory because the prequels were mostly terrible. From Jar-Jar Binks to Hayden Christensen’s acting to Anakin becoming a child-killer because he wants to save his wife, there was a lot of garbage. If they say they loved the prequels, no wonder they can’t appreciate The Last Jedi.

Most of the hate for this movie can be summed up as “I wanted Luke to be the new Yoda, and the director didn’t give that to me, so now I am pissed.” I get it. The ending of The Force Awakens teased people about this, and the hard-core fans must have spent the past two years debating about what kind of training Luke was going to give Rey when they finally met. After building up that kind of thing in your head for the best part of twenty-four months, it’s hard not to get upset when Luke basically tells Rey to get lost. But here’s the thing – if you say you hated TFA as well as TLJ, that makes sense. But these same people who have basically lost their shit over this movie say that TFA was great, JJ Abrams did a fantastic job, and Rian Johnson/Kathleen Kennedy has completely messed it up. Let me first debunk this utter nonsense:

(a) JJ Abrams was the one who put Luke on an uncharted planet, running from his responsibilities and trying very hard not to be found. So stop blaming Johnson for this, the story was set in motion by JJ in the first place.

(b) Kathleen Kennedy was the one who hired JJ Abrams in the first place. If you have an issue with her, then you should have an issue with TFA as well.

(c) Some people were saying that the female characters were all strong and the male characters all weak. Firstly, that’s garbage, it shows they don’t understand the story at all, or they just want people to hit each other over the head with light-sabers. Secondly, even if they interpret it that way, what’s wrong with a show where female characters are stronger than male ones? How about the occasional movie where guys aren’t the strong ones? Why can’t they accept that? And thirdly, JJ Abrams was the one who made Rey the main star, the new Jedi, and left Leia alive and a General but Han Solo a smuggler again, and eventually, dead. So what the heck are they on about, that Johnson’s movie was bad and Abrams’ was good?

(d) People complaining about Rey having no training and suddenly lifting rocks. So how come they are ok with Rey having even less training in TFA but being able to defeat Kylo, the same guy who is stronger than Luke Skywalker, underwent proper Jedi training, and can freaking stop blaster bolts in mid-flight? If they have no problems with this from TFA then they should have no problems with Rey lifting a few rocks in TLJ. Sheesh.

(e) People complaining about new Force powers being introduced in TLJ. Excuse me, Kylo freezing people completely and stopping blaster bolts in mid-air was all in TFA – why no issue with that? Again, they should either hate TFA and TLJ for this kind of thing, or they should be fine with both. They can’t say they like one and hate the other for it.

People who brag about having read all the canon and followed the shows from young, are basically saying that their vision and their vision alone must be followed. They are basically saying I can’t get enough of this stuff, after forty years and a billion movies/books/comics/toys/games/costumes/conventions, and you must make me another movie that is just a rehash of all the old ones but with new special effects. That’s ridiculous. Canon is made up, fictitious back story. It’s all made up. Get used to the new direction, or don’t watch the new movies, whatever. Star Wars doesn’t belong only to people who have spent their lives sleeping in Chewbacca pyjamas. It is a fantasy movie universe and the new team have to make it work for this generation of viewers, not just the older ones. People who complain about Disney/Kennedy ruining Star Wars seem to have forgotten that Star Wars before Disney was not going anywhere, no new movies were on the horizon, Lucas was basically enjoying his retirement, and the canon was contradictory and an overblown mess. These fanboys celebrated Disney when they announced a new trilogy, and now they complain that Disney is ruining Star Wars. Whatever.
Rian and Disney took the film in a different direction rather than roll out a long homage to the original trilogy like TFA did, and some are throwing their toys out of the pram. By the way, if you look carefully, you’ll see that a lot of the negative reaction is from people posting their same angry comments several times. You don’t like it, we get it, we heard you the first time, no need to double, triple or quadruple post to skew the scores, thanks. When Daniel Craig was first announced as the new bond years ago, people were up in arms over the same kinds of thing – “canon”. Bond was supposed to be blonde. Bond was supposed to like his drinks shaken, not stirred. Bond wasn’t supposed to look so rugged, like a construction worker. Yada yada. But in the end, Craig turned out to be one of the best Bonds ever, if not the best. And the same kind of courage is being shown here by Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy, in departing from the shackles of thirty years of other people’s ideas, and daring to chart a new course to keep Star Wars fresh.

Let me jump into why I didn’t think The Force Awakens was such a great movie, and why The Last Jedi avoids those very same pitfalls, and therefore rises above it as the better movie. TFA felt completely contrived, with lazy and nonsensical plot devices. People saying that it was good and TLJ had “plot holes” are clearly so blinded by their excitement at the return of the franchise in 2015, they completely overlooked all the gaping holes in TFA. Here are ten reasons why I didn’t think TFA was that good:

(1) It felt like a complete rip-off of Episode IV. It was shameless fan-service, where everything the fanboys were desperate to see after so many years was crammed into the movie, even if it didn’t make sense.

(2) Why was the Falcon on Jakku, conveniently? Why was it not guarded or disabled, if it was so precious? Why was it in plain sight even though Solo would be hunting the known universe for it, and could have paid for information from anybody who had seen it in the past thirty years?

(3) Why does Maz have Luke’s lightsaber, the one that fell into a cloud planet with no surface? Is there a garbage collection unit at the planet’s centre that sends such stuff up for people to re-use?

(4) Starkiller base, really? A big planet-sized thing that completely dwarfs the second Death Star, but was kept completely secret from the Republic and the Resistance for years while being constructed? A big base that zaps entire systems out of existence, but can be destroyed with a few well-placed laser blasts? Not just a copy of the previous two Death Stars, but an even more ridiculous version of them.

(5) The awful fight between Kylo, Finn and Rey. An ex-stormtrooper with a lightsaber can hold his own against Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren. The one who was trained by Luke and Snoke. Who can freeze people, read their minds, stop blaster bolts in mid-flight. That guy. An ex-Stormtrooper fought a few rounds with him. And Rey, with zero Jedi training, can out-force-pull a lightsaber from him, and then beat him when she’s never before wielded a lightsaber in her life.

(6) A huge crack that appears exactly between Rey and Kylo just as she is about to kill him, which doesn’t swallow up either of them? How convenient. How crap.

(7) Captain Phasma and her ridiculous role in lowering the shields instead of fighting back or just simply dying for the cause.

(8) Kylo thrashing computer consoles when he’s pissed. If you think Anakin’s teen angst was bad, how can you excuse this nonsense?

(9) Starkiller base blows up the Republic, conveniently removing ALL meaningful opposition to the First Order except the puny Resistance, so that we can return to a Return of the Jedi state of the heroes being underdogs and on the run. That was the most lazy and cheap way to deal with the fact that the Rebels beat the Empire in the last movie.

(10) What the heck *is* the Resistance, anyway? Why do you need a “resistance” when you are on the side of the Republic? Why aren’t you part of the army of the Republic and hunting down the First Order as part of the established new peaceful system that was put in place after the fall of the Empire?

Despite all this, I enjoyed TFA. Not as much as Rogue One, and certainly nowhere as much as Empire Strikes Back, but still, I enjoyed it.

Nonetheless, there are huge, gaping, unbelievable plot holes. And they spoil the movie as a movie. It’s just a big love letter to hardcore fans, who understandably drooled from the start to the finish. But it’s not a great movie.

The Last Jedi, on the other hand, is so much better, as a movie:

(1) It doesn’t feel contrived. There wasn’t any big freaking killer weapon. There wasn’t any big freaking killer weapon with an insanely stupid weak spot that could be hit. There wasn’t any hero-saves-the-day-against-infinite-odds moment.

(2) The movie is funny but not at inappropriate moments. People who say that Luke would never “brush his shoulder off” are talking nonsense. How would you know? Have you spent the last ten years with an old Luke on that island, so you know what he would or would not do?

(3) The characters are believably fallible. They all make silly decisions sometimes. They give in to their fears and prejudices occasionally. They all want the best, but don’t always see eye to eye about how to get there.

(4) The movie is gripping and tense. I was genuinely surprised at the way the storyline could not be predicted. What you think was going to happen, didn’t, and what you didn’t predict, happened. And that, for me, was a plus. But I know a lot of hardcore fans were upset because they had “predicted” many things and hoped that they were right, and were proven dead wrong. The irony is that Johnson basically acknowledged that fact, by having Luke twice say that “everything in that sentence is wrong.” He was almost poking fun at the people who spent the last two years speculating the plot, and now they are mad at him for that.

(5) Rey is much more interesting now. She was rather bland in the first movie, which was basically a Han-Leia tribute film. This time, we see her grapple with moral issues, and which side of the Force does she stand on. She even confronts Luke himself over what she perceives as his moral failure.

(6) Kylo Ren, against my expectations, has somehow become a fun character now. I actually like him. I hated him in TFA, a whiny, bratty, self-absorbed kid with serious daddy issues. But now, they’ve gone into his motivations for joining the dark side, and shown him unwilling to go all the way with Snoke. He is still too far gone to be redeemed, much like Vader in Return of the Jedi, but you now see that he is not such a plain, one-note villain. That sets up a very interesting Episode 9, where Rey is a foe/rival/kindred spirit, a completely new dynamic never before seen, not even with Obi-Wan and Anakin.

(7) The customary cutesy crap is kept to an absolute minimum. No Jar Jar rubbish, no Ewoks. Just a few penguin-like creatures that don’t have much screen time.

(8) The First Order actually looks half decent. No repeat of the invasion of Hoth, where it was a proper Rebel base with clear defensive preparations in place. This time, rusting vehicles and insufficient time to properly dig in made for a completely one-sided battle, as expected. Not a single assault walker was taken out, which made sense.

(9) The unbelievable way Snoke’s huge-ass ship was taken down. It was spectacular and worth the admission price alone. It had been foreshadowed though – Rogue One already gave two different hints that something like this could happen (Vader’s Star Destroyer jumping in just as rebel ships were jumping out, leading to a couple of crashes; the hammerhead corvette being used to crash two Star Destroyers together, the first time an intentional capital ship collision was shown).

(10) The skilful way the Falcon’s save-the-day moment was done. The ship was kept out of mind and out of sight until the final battle, where it not only saved the day, but fittingly became the vessel upon which all the hopes of the Resistance were carried. It was a worthy tribute for the ship that started the entire saga, forty years ago.

(11) Laser bolts on starship shields. The shields on Leia’s cruiser absorbing laser blasts some distance away from the actual hull – beautiful.

(12) The death of Snoke. Great way to end a villain. So much better than the way Darth Maul, Count Dooku or even the Emperor died.

(13) The fight in Snoke’s throne room. Awesome and fantastic to watch. The only fight that looked better was Darth Maul vs Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon. Vader and Luke was iconic, important and the original thing, but really, not very impressive. Understandable though, since it was 1977-1983 standard of movie making. Anakin & Obiwan versus Dooku, over-the-top and ostentatious, Anakin vs Obiwan was just rubbish.

Let me say I can see where the fanboys got the most pissed, even if I don’t agree that they should be so upset about it:

(a) Luke, Luke and Luke. The hero in people’s minds, who was supposed to teach Rey to become a Jedi, who was supposed to come and save the day and kill/maim/kick the ass of Kylo Ren, was instead a tired, angry, conflicted, regretful man who threw his lightsaber away, abandoned his droid, ditched his X-Wing and called his weapon a “laser sword”. Honestly, I think that is completely believable. Plus, this is Luke thirty years later. People who want him to be Luke from Return of the Jedi, with just a bit more facial hair, don’t get the plot at all.

(b) Poe, Poe and Poe. He’s the best pilot in the Resistance and he gets demoted, grounded and proven dead wrong in his instincts. Fans are up in arms about that. So what? I thought he was cocky and arrogant in TFA, nice to see him brought down a level or two. I think he will be awesome in Episode 9, having gone through all that. And his fall from grace in the show actually made him more relatable – I was rooting for him much more in TLJ than in TFA, where he was just a hotshot in a fightercraft.

(c) Leia’s little superman act. Ok, I’ll give the fanboys this one. It was crap.

(d) Finn and Rose, the “useless side story” and “pointless mini love interest”. For people who wanted to see Finn and Rey kiss, they were pissed. For people who wanted to see Finn do something heroic and not get tased by a female mechanic, they were pissed. I just don’t see the fuss. And oh, their adventures were not useless or pointless. They were genuine attempts to save the fleet, though ultimately they were undone by betrayal. Those who don’t get that, should just go and watch looped clips of Luke and Vader fighting, and stop commenting on the new movies.

(e) Burning the ancient tree and the Jedi texts. Yeah, that got people upset. But really, why? I guess that’s what separates the casual fans from the hardcore fans – this kind of thing doesn’t bother us, it’s not like somebody dug up the graves of your ancestors, so I think some people need to chill a bit.

(f) Snoke dying. Again, why should that be upsetting? Hoping that he would be Palpatine V.2? Get over it, stop asking for rehashed characters from the earlier movies.

(g) No lightsaber duels, only a duel over a lightsaber. But really, after seven freaking movies, you still need to see more lightsaber duels? That’s sad. I enjoyed Rogue One thoroughly, no lightsabers in sight at all (not counting the Vader fan-service moment at the end). I thought the Last Jedi’s new take on the Praetorian guards was awesome, especially the thing that can grab lightsabers.

(h) Female characters strongly portrayed, male characters weakly portrayed. See earlier comments on this.

(i) No repeat of the Hoth speeder-vs-walker battle, even though it was teased in the trailers. Yeah, so it was a head-fake. But again, unless you are just hoping for Empire Strikes Back with new special effects, why can’t you appreciate the new battle for its merits? Loved the salt/sand colour thing, loved the intervention of the Falcon, loved that the door went down but the Resistance still “won” by escaping.

 

(j) The “slow-motion car chase”. Common complaint – why couldn’t the First Order jump to a location in the path of the fleeing Resistance ships and just cut them off? It’s actually not as silly as it sounds, if you bother to think about it. The First Order are also conserving fuel. They know that if the Resistance ships jump to lightspeed, they will be able to follow, so no worries there. The Resistance ships are lower on fuel, so it’s just a matter of time before they fall behind and enter the range of the big dreadnought cannons. There’s really no risk here. Technically, one or two First Order ships could have jumped ahead, but they chose not to, thinking that victory was assured and more or less on its way. That’s not as crazy as some people make it out to me. I think the “huge super weapon that can destroy entire planets but has a glaring weakness” is the dumber plot device, one which has been employed in so many previous Star Wars movies. I’m glad they went with this one instead, while not watertight, was at least novel and interesting.

(k) Finally, the biggie. Luke not actually turning up to fight Kylo, but only sending his hologram and then dying on the deserted planet. I thought that was a great scene, made the invulnerable Luke moment make sense, and was a great way to deal with all sorts of problems like how did Luke come back without the whole First Order fleet noticing, how did he get into the base, etc.

There’s actually a lot more I liked about the movie, but this post has gone on far too long. I’ll stop here. I need to get some sleep, and then maybe go watch the movie a second time.

Everybody is talking about Bitcoin. It’s in the news. It’s in the papers. It’s gone from $1 several years ago to almost $20,000 in recent times. You can’t hide from it. In Singapore, where I live, there’s news about how people rushing to buy Bitcoin have crashed a couple of Bitcoin ATMs.

I finally got off my butt to go find out more about it, since a friend asked me for advice about whether to get into it. I did a lot of reading, and found three camps of voices – (1) the crypto-proponents who say that Bitcoin will change the world of finance. These usually come from people selling Bitcoin, which should put you on alert immediately. (2) the establishment voices who say that Bitcoin is at worst a ponzi scam, and at best a bubble that will soon burst. And (3) the vast majority of people who don’t understand it enough to even form an opinion, or are unwilling to give advice about it.

Here’s the thing, people from camp 1 and camp 2 routinely accuse each other of having an agenda and being biased in their opinions. And BOTH are right – BOTH sides have something they are trying to push or protect, so take both views with a pinch of salt. Try to understand the underlying arguments or technology and form your own view, but look at things holistically. Everything looks different when examined in isolation and cut off from external factors, but the world doesn’t work like that.

DISCLAIMER

Let me first state some disclaimers.

(a) I don’t own any Bitcoins, at all, and am in no way involved in the trade or mining of Bitcoin.

(b) I don’t have any investments, in stocks or shares, at all.

(c) I have no vested interest in any financial system or institution.

If you think any or all of these above disqualifies me from making any valid points, by all means, stop reading here. But if you think that an “outsider” can still form a useful opinion based on researching and understanding the issues, read on.

MY VIEW

I’ve come to the conclusion that Bitcoin itself is not a bad thing. It’s a very interesting solution to a lot of problems in the existing system. Bitcoin is a form of cryptocurrency, and for a very simplistic explanation of how it works, read this. If you’re up for something heavier and more technical, the founder of Bitcoin released a Bitcoin White Paper which is pretty interesting, too.

Having said that, I have to state that in my opinion, at the moment, Bitcoin is highly overpriced and poised for a crash, which echoes the sentiments of many people who have studied this issue, even those who made a lot of money already from Bitcoin. So if you already own Bitcoin, great, do what you want with it, or even better, cash out now and use the money on something more tangible like a nice house in France. If you don’t already own Bitcoin and want to shell out upwards of US$17,000 on a Bitcoin now, my advice to you is: please don’t. Here are 10 reasons why I think buying Bitcoin at this point in time is dangerous:

1. All the classic signs of an asset bubble are there. – sudden and unexplained price spike (Bitcoin has been around since before 2010, but it suddenly spiked in mid-2017), insane levels of price growth, people rushing to get into the market, people spending beyond their means to try to get into Bitcoin, people buying without understanding what it is. In every previous bubble, people were convinced that they would get rich, or at least make a huge profit and get out before the bubble burst. It doesn’t work that way. Nobody knows when a bubble will burst, unless you are the ones manipulating it in the first place (see point #3 below), and when it bursts, it crashes very quickly, like the housing bubble. Losing money is guaranteed for most people, and Bitcoin is shaping up to be exactly like that.
   
2. You won’t be able to get rich like the people who say they have already become rich on Bitcoin. You’ll never be able to be like the people who said they’ve already made a lot of money on it – these people bought Bitcoin when it was low. You will be buying Bitcoin when it is insanely high. For example, someone who bought Bitcoin at $100, or even $1000, will still be making a handsome profit if Bitcoin crashes by 80% from its current price of well over $16,000. They are not wrong when they say that they aren’t worried about losing money even if the price drops from it’s current levels. You, on the other hand, if you buy now at $17,000 dollars per bitcoin, will lose $13,000 if the prices crash like that.I’m not saying it will crash, it might, it might not. I’m saying stop listening to people who say they made a lot of money. If you didn’t buy at the price they bought it at, you’ll never be like them, so forget it. There are many people who are joining the Bitcoin craze knowingthat the market is in for a steep correction eventually. They hope to be able to ride the dragon for as long as possible, and get out when it looks like the end. The problem with this thinking, as with all previous bubbles, is that nobody knows when that will happen, and when it happens, it happens too quickly for most to react. So the risk is very high at this point in the Bitcoin market.
   
3. Those who made Bitcoin version 1 can easily make Bitcoin version 2, while cashing out on Bitcoin v1 and getting filthy rich at the same time. Bitcoin is shrouded in mystery. Who invented it and who holds the coins today is largely unknown to most people. It is an undisputed fact that criminals and criminal organisations have been and are still using Bitcoin as a way to transact under the radar. Money laundering is rampant in the Bitcoin world. Ask yourself – why would criminal organisations want Bitcoin to go mainstream and attract government attention and scrutiny and even regulation? Answer – they don’t. If they were somehow involved in the creation and early adoption of Bitcoin, they can and probably have already created another new cryptocurrency to switch to once Bitcoin becomes too “hot”. At that point, they will dump Bitcoins in large amounts, cash out, become filthy rich, and switch to the new cryptocurrency which they have created and also control, and leave worthless Bitcoins in the hands of the people who paid a lot for them. It’s a very real possibility, and should not be dismissed out of hand.
4. Bitcoin is not “digital gold”. There are many who claim that Bitcoin is just like gold, only digital. The fact that it is finite is the reason why the value keeps going up – that the scarcity is driving demand. There are indeed many similarities between Bitcoin and gold – in fact, it is more like gold than it is like a true currency, especially at US$20,000 a coin. I won’t go into the reasons why it is similar to gold – you’ll find that all over the internet from people who are trying to get you to buy into Bitcoin.
   
   Here’s the single most important reason why it is NOT like gold – gold is a physical commodity on earth, sitting near the top of the list of all physical commodities in value because of various reasons. You can’t (not right now anyway) make more gold, and you can’t easily make other commodities more valuable to replace gold. Bitcoin is completely not like that. It is a digital creation, a virtual commodity, a product of mathematical and computational effort. Other types of cryptocurrency can and will be invented which will directly compete with Bitcoin. Russia and many countries and institutions are already developing their own. This is the digital equivalent of creating new types of gold, rendering the “old” gold less scarce and therefore less valuable.In the real world, you can’t have people say, “right, we’re all gonna ditch gold and switch to trading clay. All you suckers holding gold, haha bye bye, we’re going to get rich because we all decided tomorrow that gold is worthless and clay is valuable.” It doesn’t work like that in the real world. But in cryptocurrencies, that’s exactly what can and is going to happen. 4% of Bitcoin addresses control 95% of the market, and 1% controls HALF of the entire Bitcoin market. That is an incredibly small group controlling a very large share of the market. And nobody knows who they are. When they decide to cash out, which they will, they will wreck the price of Bitcoin and move to a new cryptocurrency (see the previous point about Bitcoin V1 and Bitcoin V2) and be exactly where they are currently in terms of holdings, but billions of dollars richer in the meantime. And all the remaining Bitcoin owners, who collectively hold less than 5% of the bitcoins now, will be awash in millions of worthless Bitcoins.
5. Arguments about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general have been conflated. You need to separate the two. Bitcoin is a type of currency built on block-chain technology, which itself is a subset of the general term cryptocurrency. The broad consensus is that cryptocurrency is going to be the currency of the future, maybe even the global currency. But that’s not the same as saying Bitcoin will keep rising in price because of this. People use the two terms interchangeably, when they should not. It’s like saying the word “bread”, which is a subset of staple foods, which is a subset of food in general, can be used interchangeably with the word “food”. It can’t and shouldn’t. You can’t argue that the price of bread will rise forever because people will always need food. Once bread becomes too expensive, people will switch to other food.Likewise, when Bitcoin becomes too expensive or hard to get into, other cryptocurrencies and other block-chain currencies will rise in popularity (and there are already many others out there). When enough arise and are adopted widely, Bitcoin will be relegated to just one of the many options out there and the price will drop to a more realistic number. At that point, people who bought it at less than $1000 will still make a lot of money; people who bought it at $20,000 will lose a lot of money. If you buy Bitcoin now, you belong to the latter category.
6. Bitcoin is not as secure as people think it is. Bitcoin is prized mostly because, as a cryptocurrency, it is secure. This is not entirely true – Bitcoin exchanges have been hacked before. And even the security of the mathematical function itself, supposedly difficult to crack, is under threat, due to the development of quantum computing. So potentially the most valuable attribute of Bitcoin will vanish in a few years, once computing power takes a huge leap forward. And when that happens, it’s value will drop drastically, or at the very least stop appreciating. Of course, people will say that by that time, we can switch to a new cryptocurrency using an even more complex formula, which will be secure by quantum computing standards. But that’s exactly my point – Bitcoin itself, in its current form, will be obsolete at that time and worth much less than at current prices.

7. The bullish sentiment of the Bitcoin market ignores the effect of major institutional intervention. Right now, Bitcoin is too small to be a threat to global banking systems. So most governments are not devoting significant resources to look into it. But as it grows, it will attract such attention and political will to do something. There’s a good reason why governments want their own currencies, to have control over fiscal policy and sovereignty. Look at Brexit and the move towards independence within regions in many countries.
   
   Bitcoin is touted as the way for people to escape the control of central banks and governments. Don’t think that central banks and governments will sit idly while it happens. When it grows big enough, and such a time is very near, you’ll see a backlash from the existing financial systems and governments. They will either ban bitcoin, like China has, or they will start their own cryptocurrency, which Russia is doing. People say that China’s ban on bitcoin has not affected the market. It has, and it did, even though it was temporary. When many more countries ban Bitcoin and/or introduce their own cryptocurrency alternatives, you will see cryptocurrencies in general rise in adoption, but Bitcoin itself will suffer in price, because then there will be so many alternatives to choose from. Remember, we are talking about whether you should buy Bitcoin now at almost $20,000 a coin. We aren’t talking about whether you should bet on cryptocurrencies in general.
8. The shutdown of Bitcoin, a difficult, if not impossible, task for governments, is not the only threat to Bitcoin’s value. A related issue is when crypto proponents push the argument that because of the way Bitcoin is designed, no government can shut it down. That’s probably true. But what they aren’t telling you is that governments can bring down the price of Bitcoin by supporting an even more attractive option for people. Let’s say someone invents another type of cryptocurrency, which I stress, is not too difficult to do, as shown by the number of alternatives already coming out now. If, say, China decides to back this currency, it can immediately mandate that every shop in China has not only got to accept this currency, it must trade in that currency. And you better believe China is capable of enforcing such an action. What will happen is that suddenly, you have a Bitcoin alternative available that is being actively used in the largest consumer market in the world. You will see a lot of people try to get into that instead, some will even dump Bitcoins to cross over, which naturally will drive the price of Bitcoin down. It won’t shut Bitcoin down, but it will cause Bitcoin to lose a lot of value, which is again the point I’m trying to make – unlimited growth for Bitcoin is not sustainable. This is just one of many scenarios that can and will take place, so don’t believe the hype that Bitcoin is untouchable.
9. Bitcoin is not viable anymore as currency. It is a commodity that is traded directly between individuals. It is not a currency because it cannot be used in most places in the world at the moment, and ironically, its recent volatility is increasingly preventing it from being used as currency, coupled with rising transaction fees. Some merchants which used to accept bitcoin have stopped doing so, because the rising price means that they actually have to refund money to customers while transactions are ongoing, because the bitcoins are now worth more than the item they are buying. It sounds great for customers, but it’s not. If you are thinking of buying into bitcoin because it is the future of currency, it’s the opposite. Your demand for a limited commodity (Bitcoin, not cryptocurrencies in general) is driving the price up to where it is useless as a currency. But people who want the price high so they can cash out don’t want you to know that, so they keep pushing this “currency” nonsense. I repeat, Bitcoin was ironically half decent as a form of currency before 2017, when it had a relatively stable value. It is now way too volatile to be anything but an asset bubble, so stop thinking of it as a currency. Nobody is buying it now for the purpose of using it as a currency, and even Bitcoin sellers are admitting that the direction it is heading is further and further from wide adoption as a currency.In fact, Bitcoin in its current form can’t eventually be the world currency, as in, it can’t handle all global transactions at once, due to technical reasons like block size limitations and so on which I won’t go into here. At best, Bitcoin is the precursor to another future cryptocurrency that does become usable as a global currency, but that simply reinforces the point that buying Bitcoin now thinking it will become the future world currency is misguided.
10. Bitcoin is virtual, but the ultimate things of value remain physical. People who say that Bitcoin is unlike the tulip craze or the housing market bubble, are partially right but also wrong. They are right in saying that this is something different, a completely new asset class, or even a new way to do business. However, Bitcoin isn’t as delinked from the real world as it sounds. People don’t own Bitcoin for the sake of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is nothing more than a string of mathematical code. It is valuable only because people think someone will come along and pay more for it in the future. The second the sentiment turns, as it does when a bubble bursts, people panic and start to sell. This is because Bitcoin, like money, is a means to an end.Money itself is worthless, it’s just paper. It only has value because you hope somebody will give you something valuable in exchange for it. Without that, the paper itself is essentially of no value. In many cases in the past, money has been rendered worthless for a number of reasons, like hyperinflation. Even the current quantitative easing is a form of printing new money, making it worth less.
    In money laundering, the final step is the most important – when you turn the illicit funds into wealth that seems legitimate. This is called integration, and frequently involves converting the cash into tangible physical assets like property, investments, and gold. People can live in castles and drive fast cars, they can enjoy good wine and dress in expensive jewelry, but they can’t doing anything with a Bitcoin, except hope that somebody will pay them real money for it eventually. If that doesn’t happen, the Bitcoin is essentially worth nothing, just like some paper currencies of the past. So a Bitcoin bubble is real and not unlike previous bubbles – Bitcoin is only worth what people think it is worth, and has no other intrinsic value. Which is why the argument that Bitcoin will forever hold its value is flawed, and will likely be proved false when the people controlling the vast majority of Bitcoin decide to cash out and convert their wealth into real-world assets, leaving the rest with a bunch of worthless code on their hard drives.

So, to reiterate, buying Bitcoins is not a bad idea. Buying cryptocurrencies in general is not a bad idea. Buying Bitcoin now, at current prices, is a bad idea. It’s precisely this irrational fear of “missing the boat” that causes bubbles to form and then crash. Don’t. Invest if you want to, but don’t spend what you aren’t prepared to lose, and don’t expect to get rich buying Bitcoins at today’s prices. If you really must spend your money on something virtual, there are lots of other things out there, too.

I was watching a video posted by a friend about the current wildfires raging in California, threatening thousands of homes and hundreds of thousands of residents. The images can scarcely be believed – they look like something out of a Hollywood movie. Ironic, then, that the fires are threatening Hollywood itself.

I just want to stop here and say that I wish the best to all the residents and people who are affected by this great, and unfolding tragedy. May you and all your loved ones be safe, and may your communities rise out of the ashes, perhaps literally, stronger and more united.

On another note, it got me thinking, I really live in a very safe and comfortable place – Singapore. People talk about how clean the streets are, how safe it is to walk around, even late at night. But I suspect few people appreciate another important aspect about Singapore – due to our geographical location, we are spared just about every major type of natural disaster there is out there.

We don’t get hit by typhoons and hurricanes.

We don’t get hit by tornados.

We don’t get hit by tsunamis.

We don’t get hit by floods.

We don’t suffer from drought (though water sufficiency is an issue).

We don’t get hit by landslides.

We don’t get hit by volcanic eruptions.

We don’t get hit by earthquakes (we do feel them, though).

And of course, wildfires.

The biggest problems we’ve faced over the past fifty years of our existence as an independent country are choking haze from fires in Indonesia, and the constant and growing threat of rising sea levels. Apart from that, nothing severe.

Singapore has a mild climate, in relative terms. It’s constantly hot and humid, with the humidity reaching insane levels on occasion, sometimes over 90% (!). I’ve had foreigners tell me that when they walked out of the air-conditioned area in Changi airport to catch a taxi, they felt like they had hit a brick wall – the heat and humidity was unbelievable.

We do get torrential rain sometimes, with localised flooding, but nothing of the sort seen when a hurricane or typhoon hits. We get crazy lightning storms, but because we’re so urbanised, there’s always a tall building or two nearby to catch the lightning.

For those unfamiliar with Singapore’s geography, we’re an island located in the South China Sea, at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula. Because we’re surrounded on all four sides by huge islands and land masses, and being so close to the equator, that protects us from all of the natural disasters mentioned above.

So with such a comfortable existence here, not to mention the first-world economy, high-quality medical care, affordable public housing and transport, as well as the availability of jobs and a wide variety of food, you’d think Singaporeans would be the happiest people on the planet.

But no, we complain a lot.

Yes, there are legitimate annoyances to living in Singapore. Trains breaking down. Buses being overcrowded. Dangerous drivers. Rude people on the streets. The occasional crazy neighbour. Pressurizing school and work culture. However, that’s really just par for the course. Nothing more or less than a typical major urban centre. Far better than some I’ve heard about, too.

So all things considered, I would say anybody living in Singapore is very blessed. We get clean and safe streets, free of pestilence and disease. We get clean, drinkable water, free from taps in all public buildings like shopping malls, while almost 1 billion people in the world don’t even have access to clean water, paid or otherwise.

I’m very, very grateful to have been born in Singapore, and to be still living here. It’s not a perfect country, far from it, but it’s still pretty darn good.

I’ve sent a few sample chapters of my first book to a friend of a friend, who works as a literary agent in the U.K. He gave valuable feedback, most importantly that the book in its current form has a weak opening. It will not grab readers, and most certainly will not interest publishers. I knew this, but I was reluctant to do anything about it, for a very silly reason – I had started on this book many years ago, and wrote the first three chapters quite a while back. I only returned to finish the book this year, and made minor edits to those early chapters in order to ensure some plot consistency. Due to a mix of nostalgia and sheer indifference, I changed little from the opening chapters.

Thinking back, that was a bad idea – my writing has changed a lot over the years, both as a result of my skills developed through my work, as well as my own life journey. This meant that the first three chapters are not only the weakest part of the book, they are MUCH weaker than the rest of the book. Unfortunately, today’s audience doesn’t have the patience to wade through three slow and rather tedious chapters to get to the interesting portions. They won’t even wade through ONE chapter. If I’m going to make the book work, I have to rewrite those portions, and be as ruthless as necessary to cut away whatever makes it less interesting to read. Even if they are portions that come from the very beginnings of my writing life. Sentiment, nostalgia, laziness – NONE OF THESE HAVE ANY PLACE IN A SUCCESSFUL WRITER’S LIFE.

A couple of important things I’ve learnt – firstly, backstory is important to keep in my own head, but not to download to the reader, as it gets boring very quickly. Only give whatever is needed to move the plot along or give the proper context. Secondly, reveal backstory as you go along, not do a massive chunk of frontloading – it’s not just boring, it’s hard to remember by the time the reader reaches the later chapters.

So, I’m going back with a knife, nay, an axe, to chop away the dead wood at the start of the book. I need to learn how to write fiction well, and write fiction well for the audience of 2017 and beyond, not follow the writing style of people long gone like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, whose audiences were from a different era, with different sensibilities and a whole lot more time (no planes to speed up travel, no mobile phones to entertain us in queues, no internet to flood us with reading choices).

I’ll leave you with a quote from Stephen King, which aptly summarises this recent epiphany of mine:

“Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle.”

So I just came back from watching Thor: Ragnarok in dead-centre seats at an IMAX 3-D cinema (the ONLY way to watch superhero movies). Let me get it out of the way, it’s a good movie, highly enjoyable, loads of fun. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

I think what makes it pleasing is that after 17 (!) movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe alone, not to mention the X-Men movies from Fox, the Spiderman movies from Sony and the D.C. movies, there’s a bit of superhero fatigue among cinema goers. So for a movie to stand out, it’s got to be fresh and different. Guardians of the Galaxy started it, with irreverent humour and off-beat music, and Deadpool showed just how far out you could go. But for Thor, a heavy-hitter (no pun intended) in the MCU to be given to a director with such comedic sensibilities as Taika Waititi, shows guts on the part of Marvel. The movie pokes fun at all sorts of things, even itself, and references funny moments from earlier MCU films.

But somehow, I feel, it misses the mark to be a truly greatmovie. A reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the 5% that gave the movie a poor rating, said it best:

As much fun as it is, Ragnarok, by treating everything as an opportunity for a goof, forfeits any chance of taking root in your imagination. Nothing matters here.

It’s like candy floss. Light, sweet, lots of fun, but not very filling. A bit more steak would have been welcome – heavy, something to chew on, richer flavours, makes you satisfied at the end. It’s not that humour isn’t welcome, it is. Nobody wants the pretentious, self-serious garbage served up by Batman v Superman. It’s just that, there should be a balance, with more serious moments. More parts where it gives you time to simply care about things. It almost feels like the director is afraid to let the movie settle into a “serious tone”, so he deliberately punctuates it with laugh-out-loud moments. They’re funny, definitely, but at some points I felt that they were inappropriate. Not “toilet-humour” inappropriate, but more like “laughing at your grandmother’s funeral” inappropriate.

It’s not impossible to find a balance – it’s been done before, in the very same movie universe. Doctor Strange was laugh-out-loud hilarious at moments too, but still retained the appropriate amount of seriousness during difficult scenes, like when Strange got into the car accident and had a painful recovery process. Or the entire third act where the fate of the entire planet hung in the balance and people were dying all over. It *is* possible to be funny and serious in the same movie, and when done right, makes a great movie, in my opinion.

Granted, my sensibilities lie towards superhero movies with a bit more emotional weight (bizarre as that concept may sound), where the stakes feel real and the characters look like they actually give a d*mn about things. Maybe because Thor is practically immortal, it is probably natural that he would not take things seriously, compared to the humans who populate the other slots in the Avengers’ lineup. Yet, it also makes us care less about the outcome of the movie because the protagonist himself is so flippant.

I personally would take a Captain America: Civil War over a Guardians of the Galaxy any day. It had everything – humour (though mainly in scenes involving Iron Man and Spiderman, and of course Ant-Man), action, tragedy, romance (kind of), betrayal (sort of). The movie really made you care. It made you feel like there really was enough difference of opinion that close friends could be torn apart. It made you sad at the end, and yet satisfied that there was a proper conclusion to this particular saga. A careful blend like that, in my opinion, led to the best MCU movie ever, and it remains hard to beat. I suspect, though, Avengers: Infinity War will surpass it, since the absolutely brilliant Russo brothers are directors for both films (as well as the pretty decent Captain America: Winter Soldier).

I guess at the end of it all, I’m probably nitpicking. It’s like saying I wish my Singapore Airlines business class seat was a bit more like a first class seat. It’s still an awesome movie, and highly recommended. And here’s hoping that this is Taika Waititi’s version of Winter Soldier – a good movie that helps him eventually make some mindblowingly awesome ones. In the meantime, I’ll continue to root for everybody’s favourite norse god and his (ex) hammer.

So one of my little girls comes up to me, grabs me in a big hug and doesn’t let go. She tells me, “daddy, I don’t wanna ever grow up, because when I grow up, I will have to leave you and mommy, and I don’t ever wanna do that. I wanna be with you forever.” These are the kind of things an eight year old says to you that you’ll never hear from a teenager. I love them both so much, how I would love for this stage of their life to never end, for me to constantly be greeted by such effusive displays of affection. And yet, I know that thoughts like those are from the selfish part of me. For I know that the kind of love I have for them, the kind of love that would make me give my life in exchange for theirs, it’s the same kind of love that will be theirs someday as well, when they grow up to become parents of their own. Who am I to wish that they be deprived of such a beautiful and priceless part of their own journey through life? And so, I remind myself, that if I truly love them, I must always wish the best for them, even if it means giving up something precious for myself. That is the lot of a parent. And I would have it no other way.

Just came back from watching Blade Runner 2049. It’s a pretty intense movie, not for everybody, but I loved it. Not because I’m a big fan of the original (which was good too, but it was just another good movie for me), and certainly not because of the incredibly slow pace of the movie, but because it touches on so many themes that resonate in the world we live in today.

 

The original movie explored the ideas about what it means to be human, and whether an artificial creation can feel love. Blade Runner 2049 jumps right in and says “yes”, because within the first twenty minutes of the movie it establishes Ryan Gosling’s Officer K as a replicant, yet he has what seems to be a very real emotional connection to another character in the movie. What is even more startling is that his love interest is even more “digital” than even a replicant – she is an AI construct, projected into the real world via holographic technology. The movie goes to great lengths throughout to “humanize” her, and to show that K does, for all intents and purposes, “love” her very much. She, for her part, “loves” him back, though it is unclear how much of that is “real” and how much is part of her programming, since she is presumably a companionship product, created to simulate the experience of having a real female companion. It does spark some interesting questions about love and freedom and even humanity itself. I won’t go into too much philosophical debate about those themes; the internet abounds with articles about them, and here is an example of a good one:

 Blade Runner 2049 review in Vox

What I want to talk about is how one part of the movie jumped out at me (no, it wasn’t the huge holograms) – in one scene, a bunch of hookers are instructed to get close to K in order to learn more about what he’s after. One of them, after realising from an audio cue that K owns a companionship product, states that he is one of those guys who prefers virtual women to real ones. It is a profound social commentary, that suggests in a world where we are increasingly attached to our electronic devices and connected to the virtual world rather than the physical one around us, it may come to pass that humans will one day shun relationships with other humans, in favour of custom-made AI that we can tweak to suit us as we desire. Want a girl that is sweet and yet strong? Put that into the shopping list. Want her to be child-like and playful at times, but mature and thoughtful at others? Tick the right options in the menu. Want her to have a great voice and a lovely smile? Adjust the sliders accordingly. Finally, when you’re satisfied, hit “checkout” and pay, and she’s ready to download.

That will never happen, we say. That’s just a far-fetched reaction of people who are ignorant and afraid of technological advancement. That’s just the kind of thinking of 21st century Luddites. Is it? It’s already happening, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. Blade Runner isn’t suggesting something novel in a possible future society – it’s commenting on something that is already here, and growing. Already, teenagers are more hooked than ever to computer games and virtual worlds. Social media is incredibly addictive, and the modern teenager’s self-esteem is becoming dangerously intertwined with the virtual world and online “friends”, rather than the people that are actually in the physical world around the teen, including family, neighbours and classmates.

Why is this so? The answer is simple – human relationships are messy, complicated, and tiring. Who hasn’t been bullied in school, or seen someone being bullied? Who hasn’t experienced betrayal, or seen it in action? Who hasn’t felt the exhilaration of a new love interest, coupled with painful lows that come with it, all in an exhausting roller-coaster ride of emotions? Who hasn’t had to face rejection, or criticism, or the failure to meet the expectations of others?

What if we could avoid this entirely? What if we could have friends that would never judge us, never criticise us, never leave us. What if we could have a girlfriend who would be there whenever we wanted company, but would not grumble if we wanted time alone to watch football, play Battlefront on the computer, or build a Lego Millenium Falcon? How tempting that would be, especially the closer we get to simulating reality with these artificial intelligence products. Yes, most of us would still crave authenticity. But more and more of us would also someday take the easy way out – to skip the effort and pain of maintaining relationships with real humans, and to just surround ourselves with digital personalities, as many as we want.

It’s a scary thought, one brought vividly to life on the big screen by Blade Runner 2049. But it’s something we should talk about and think about seriously, before we one day wake up and find an entire planet of people completely alone, organic islands in a sea of electrons and pixels.

When people ask me what kind of book I wrote/am currently writing, I tell them, “it’s a fantasy novel.” And many of them go, “oh! that’s very interesting!” I admit, it isn’t an everyday occurrence that you know someone writing fantasy. There’s so many genres of fiction out there, not to mention non-fiction books, that there aren’t that many fantasy writers in most neighbourhoods.

Even then, within fantasy alone, there’s a lot of different types. So when I say I’m writing fantasy, I’m sure some people immediately think of a geeky guy with glasses, a magic wand, and a hot female classmate. Others will imagine stuff involving huge dragons and ice zombies. A few might think wizards and warlocks, and there’s even sci-fi fantasy where magic meets technology. There’s just so much that it’s hard to describe exactly what my writing is about.

The easiest way, I suppose, is to think of it like a cross between Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Game of Thrones.

Lord of the Rings because it set the foundation for the most commonly known fantasy “races”, namely humans, elves and dwarves, as well as those on the other side, like orcs and trolls. I decided to go with these, rather than inventing some new types of creatures, which would inevitably end up as just rip-offs of these types. “Oh, the so-and-so are just elven knockoffs,” someone would probably say. I was more interested in plot, so I decided to jump in straightaway using familiar archetypes and just get moving.

Narnia, because I love the general tone of the books, where there’s danger and mystery but always a hopeful and optimistic air about it all, that evil won’t triumph in the end, and the protagonists will grow and learn something by the end of their journey. I don’t quite have talking animals, but a lot of the themes in my book are inspired by the work of C.S. Lewis.

And finally, Game of Thrones, because I absolutely love the wit and humour of George R.R. Martin’s series. More importantly, magic plays a minimal role in it, unlike other books in which wizards and spells and runes and demonic creatures take centrestage. I like that GoT is really like a drama set in a fantasy realm, with petty family feuds and treacherous court officials, ruthless kings and brave knights. It’s like a compelling soap opera where key characters get killed off regularly, and once in a while you get dragons. The rest of the time, it’s humans and their very relatable flaws, weaknesses, aspirations and moments of heroism. Great stuff.

I do admit, I’m a little bit of a lazy reader, and I haven’t gone through some of the best fantasy work out there, such as David Eddings, Robert Jordan and the like. I like to sample a broad range of stuff, and I’m a huge history buff, so my shelves are actually stocked with way too many non-fiction books rather than the things I ought to read if I actually want to improve as a fantasy writer.

I will brag about something though, my wife and I got married with a Lord of the Rings themed wedding, so that hopefully gives us a bit of street cred!

      

So I was supposed to add more content to the blog, but instead, things caught up with me and now, the book itself is finished, but the blog is bare!

Ok, first things first. Just to let everybody know, the first book of the Fire on the Clouds trilogy, named the Prophecy of the Child, is now available on Amazon! Get yourself a copy today!