Alien—Something From Nothing

 

I saw Alien: Romulus while I was on vacation in Melbourne recently. I used to have frequent movie dates with my daughter when she was younger. But she's been pursuing her studies in Melbourne for some years now, and I haven't had a chance to do the movie thing with her for such a long time already. So when Alien: Romulus opened in a nearby cinema, I seized the opportunity to spend the afternoon with her at the cinema.

I've been a big fan of the Aliens franchise for so long now—in fact since I was a teenager. There've been so many movies spanning a few decades, and some of them crossed over with the Predator franchise, which is also another of my favourite. But this post is not a movie review. So if you haven't seen Romulus, fear not, there is no worries of spoilers here.

For some years now, I've been meaning to comment about the premise of this interesting creature. It is referred to as a "Xenomorph". The basic idea of its life cycle is quite similar to most insects—that is to say starting from an egg which then hatches into some sort of "larva". The latter then develops into a pre-adult form, and may have to change its exoskeleton several times before reaching adulthood. At least that's the general life cycle of most insects.

The life cycle of the Xenomorph is slightly different from that of the typical insect. An adult queen xenomorph lays the eggs. Each egg produces a spidery creature with a long tail, which requires a host to perform a second stage of egg-laying process. If it can find a host, it will lay its egg through the mouth. That egg will then "incubate" in that host and when it's ready for the next stage of development, it will burst out of the host, thus killing the latter. But after leaving the host, it has never been shown in detail how the creature would develop into its adult form. The only thing that the audience is shown is that the creature will go through at least one stage of cocoon, where it will form some sort of protective layer within which it will lay dormant while developing into its adult form. In the case of insects and crustaceans in general, there will be several stages of changing the exoskeleton, but I'm not sure if it's the same with the Xenomorph. In my mind, it is entirely possible that the Xenomorph may have to go through several stages of changing its exoskeleton before reaching full maturity, but I can find no source to confirm this.

Life finds a way, and although the Xenomorph is a fictional creature, I can accept the basic notion of its life cycle. In fact, I'm very impressed with the original story teller for his creativity in conjuring up such a process. I think such a life cycle is at least possible—it's not an idea that I would simply dismiss just because there is no such creature in the world. However, I've never been able to accept the developmental stages beyond the first host. I think there is simply no logic in it!

Science and common sense dictate that we need to have something to make something. The caterpillar, for example would need to find a source of materials or nutrients, say by feeding on leaves, before forming a cocoon to develop into the next stage of its life. Similarly, maggots would feed on rotten food source for its nutrients before developing into their next stage of life. These creatures need to have the "bricks and mortar to build bigger, stronger and more sophisticated structures".

The Xenomorph, however, consumes nothing after bursting out of its host. There is to my mind no nutrients to be used to grow, build exoskeleton, muscles, and other more sophisticated body parts. When bursting out of its host, it is very tiny. But it can grow so much larger (perhaps 50 times larger), stronger, and heavier into its adult form without requiring any material/nutrient for the process. It is no more, no less, a case of building something from nothing!

After so many movies featuring the Xenomorphs in a span of over 4 decades, no one has yet been able to explain satisfactorily this particular point regarding its life cycle. I said earlier that I'm impressed with the story teller for coming up with the idea of the fascinating life cycle. But I would be even more impressed if he can explain once and for all, how the Xenomorph can build something from nothing.

KK Challenge 16 - A Different Way

If you have been hunting for a long time, you're bound to notice that there are recurring tricks in the questions. The setters have the tendency to repeat some words as clues for specific answers. For example, the expression, "The French" has been used many, many times to point to the words "LE" or "LA"; "Love" to point to the digit "ZERO"; letters of the alphabet used to represent numbers in the form of the roman numerals. 

The inclusion of the word "way" in the question very frequently refers to road signs, and it covers quite a wide range of possible words, such as ROAD (RD), JALAN (JLN), LORONG (LRG), PATH, LANE, AVENUE (AVE) etc. Yes, abbreviations are commonly included, and the setter owes no duty of informing the solver that abbreviations are involved in the riddle!

For example, the following is a question that I set some 16 years ago during my early days as the Clerk-of-Course (CoC):

Q) Follow this way to get the answer, 8 of which results in a gross outcome!

A) JLN LAPAN BELAS

Now let's anaylse the question. It says, follow this "WAY", meaning that whatever is the answer that we're looking for, it follows the word "WAY" on the signboard. In this case, "WAY" = "JLN" (abbreviation for JALAN). But now the solver has to solve "8 of which results in a gross outcome".

As you can see, 8 of LAPAN BELAS = 8 X 18 = 144; and 144 is equivalent to a GROSS. That is why the required answer is: JLN LAPAN BELAS.

In July last year, when I organized the KK Challenge 15, I set the following question:

Q) Seen at the end of 4 months, it's one way to get the answer

A) BERI LALUAN

The explanation is like this. Those 3 letters, "BER" are seen at the end of 4 months, i.e. SeptemBER, OctoBER, NovemBER and DecemBER. Then what about that letter "i"? Well, it's ONE, as a roman numeral. And then we come to that word "WAY" again, and again it's referring to a road sign. In this case, that "WAY" is equated to the word "LALUAN" on the board.

Many of the hunters that have joined my previous hunts would know that I'm obsessed with psychology, and I have the tendency to experiment with hunters on account of psychology! Humans are after all quite similar with most other mammals - they are essentially creatures of habit. When they are used to seeing that word "WAY" in hunt questions as indicating road signs, they will program their minds to automatically narrow down their search to mainly road signs only.

I was wondering to myself, what if I can set a question with the involvement of the word "WAY", but not referring to a road sign? How difficult would it be to extract oneself from the notion of focusing on the road signs in the sector?

That was my thought process when I set this question:

Q33) The way to take a break?

The question itself isn't very sophisticated, and when I set it, I had intended it to be of par difficulty and perhaps solvable by even a new hunter. That is why I was surprised when only one team was able to solve it during the hunt! Another team got the answer, but they did not actually solve it.

REFLEXOLOGY AVEREST

As you can see, that word "WAY" in the question is still referring to the kind of way commonly used in cryptic questions, but here is it not referring to a road sign! In this case, "WAY" = "AVE" (abbreviation for AVENUE); and then the expression "TAKE A BREAK" is of course "REST". Joining the 2 components together by the charade operation would yield the word "AVEREST". As I said, not a very sophisticated riddle, but when the mind keeps trying to make the connection with road signs, it can be a challenging question anyway!

The use of the word "WAY" in this case is still the same as the many "ways" that have been used in past hunt questions, but it is a different way here because it does not refer to the road sign!

KK Challenge 16 - The Anchor

Each treasure hunt setter, otherwise commonly referred to as the Clerk-of-Course (CoC), has his or her peculiar style when setting questions. I have been known to set some tough questions, and I do realize that some hunters have not forgiven me for some of my diabolical ones up to now. Although tough, I would usually provide an escape route in my questions, something that I have been referring to as the "anchor".

Now take this question from last Sunday's KK Challenge 16 (KKC16):

Q2) Letter to look at?

MUSEE

In my opinion, looking at the riddle from the setter's point of view, it's not a very tough question, although of course I do realize that I may be accused of being bias. But more than half of the participating teams failed to solve it, including the first runner up of the hunt. The "escape route" that I speak of is that word "SEE" on the board, which in this case is a highly visible sign. That is the anchor that the solver can latch on to, thus narrowing the scope of search substantially. It is the anchor because SEE = LOOK AT. What remains then is the figure out the connection between MU and LETTER, and here, even if the solver does not know that MU is a Greek letter, that information can very easily be confirmed through Googling. Besides, even if the solver is so lazy to Google up information, he should at least choose this answer anyway, since that "SEE" is already connected to half of the question.

The following is another example from last Sunday:

Q5) Spirit from the east, and from a different world?

An intimidating-looking question which only 4 out of 16 teams were able to solve. Although the question is made up of a single sentence, I have inserted a comma in that sentence to indicate the boundary for the 2 different clues therein.

KARA KARA

The first challenge is to realize that the "Spirit" in the sentence is referring to alcoholic drink, and thinking in English and Malay, one should very quickly yield the Malay word ARAK. This is then to be reversed on account of the reversal indicator "from the east", to form the word KARA. I don't think that it is impossibly difficult to find at least that first KARA. That first KARA then becomes the anchor which the solver can use to narrow down his search. Beyond that point the only remaining task is therefore to discover the connection between "from a different world" and that second KARA. And here, my contention is that even if the solver does not know that Supergirl a.k.a KARA Zor-El is "from a different world", i.e. from a planet far, far away known as Krypton, the solver should at least opt for this answer anyway, because he has solved half of the clue. It's a promising answer and worth trying!

Finally, we come to one of the highlights of the day; a question that I'm expecting the hunters not to forgive me for a very long time to come, because nobody could solve it!

Q20) Blind saxophonist of the movie comes here?

SELAMAT DATANG

A seemingly boundless search for the name of a "blind saxophonist of the movie". I suppose if time is available, with enough patience, the solver can sift through the many hits from Google, and is bound to find the correct name anyway. But what about in the hunt setting where time resources is limited?

Well, the point is that the solver should have made the connection between COMES and DATANG in a jiffy. That is the escape route that the setter has provided to narrow down the search substantially, and the remaining task would then be to confirm if SELAMAT can be connected to "Blind saxophonist of the movie". Perhaps what follows then is to Google up, say, "Blind saxophonist SALAMAT", something like that, and Google will do the rest! Even if the solver can't find Kassim SELAMAT (Ibu Mertuakku, 1962), as a last resort, if there is nothing else looking promising within that sector, why not just opt for SELAMAT DATANG anyway on account of COMES = DATANG? 

The above answers were all highly visible signs and fairly easily spotted from the vehicle. As the setter, I feel like I have done my part to be fair in my questions. What remains is for the hunters to do their part to find the answers with the help of the anchor that I have provided them.

KK Challenge 16 - The Central Significance

I have toned down the difficulty level of the questions in my KK Challenge 16 treasure hunt last Sunday. But of course there were still a few notably tough ones that I suspect would enter into the history books! One of them was this question which caused many teams to burn substantial amount of time under the hot sun, and yet ended up unsolved!

Q15) 11 or 45 degrees clockwise from the north?

Looking back at the question now, perhaps it's more appropriate for a classroom exam setting, rather than a field exercise where hunters had to endure the brutally hot day amidst horrifying traffic jam. This was especially so when most teams were bleeding away precious time, with a couple more sectors yet to cover!

If one were nicely seated in an exam hall, in the comfort of an air-conditioned room, and indefinite amount of time to think in a calmly manner, maybe - just maybe - there is a higher chance to figure out the answer. But even then, it would have required a very strong hunter having a good day, and who's unwilling to surrender very quickly!

Anticipating such an uphill task for the hunters, I dropped a big hint to the hunters a few weeks before the hunt, practically informing them that there will be a Double Jeopardy (DJ) question for the KK Challenge 16. The DJ is a type of treasure hunt question that is unique in the sense that what's provided to the hunters on paper is actually the answer to a question; and the hunters will then have to find the question on the signboard within the specified hunt sector. This is of course the reverse scenario of the norm.

What makes this DJ even tougher is that even the clues in the question are indirect and require a bit of figuring out. In this particular case, the best place to start is the "45 degrees clockwise from the north", which is of course northeast or simply NE as its abbreviation. Only that part of the clue has a reasonable degree of certainty that the hunters can latch on to. The "11" at the start of the sentence is a little harder to deal with.

Now the trouble with the DJ is that it's almost impossible to solve the riddle on paper even if the solver is aware that he's dealing with a DJ. The solver must be in the hunt sector to start with, and then scan through all the possible candidates there, and hopefully can reverse engineer to make the connection with what he has on paper! If he's lucky, he will notice this signboard:

A) THE ONE-STOP CENTRE @ GRAFIK STUDIO

If you have some basic knowledge of cryptic clueing, then you would know that that word CENTRE is a cryptic indicator that points to the central portion of the fodder (the target of the indicator). In this particular case, the fodder is: THE ONE-STOP, 3 words taken together as a whole, as if to form a long single word! And the centre of that resulting long word are the letters NE. And then, as a confirmation, if that central NE is extended a bit more, then instead of 2 letters, you just add 2 more to become 4 letters, one each on the left and right, and you will get ONES. Now you can see that ONES (not eleven as what it seemingly is) agrees with the "11" at the beginning of the sentence to confirm the solution to the riddle. So now you can see that the centre for THE ONE-STOP are either ONES or NE.

Questions such as this may look easy and straightforward to the very strong hunter when seen on paper, together with the answer nicely cut and dried. But when one is out there in the field subject to the elements, it's a totally different story.

Late Arrival at the Departure Gate

I used to be a loyal supporter of Air Asia. But the reason for that support was not because of its service; rather it's simply because of its status as a no-frills budget airline. You see, I'm not one who's after luxury when I travel, nor top-notch service. I always travel economy. However, since last year I've boycotted Air Asia. The reason is because it has become an unreliable airline. It's bound to change flight schedules at a moment's notice; and there's bound to be delays at the airport. Whenever I travel, I'd like to have a certain degree of certainty on the timings of flights, i.e. the times of departures and arrivals. To me, time is very important.

However, over the years of travelling on Air Asia, I've missed flights on several occasions for numerous reasons. At least twice, I think, were because I wrongly read the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) as ETD (Estimated Time of Departure) somehow, thus arriving at the airport when the plane had landed at the destination. How I made that sort of mistake, let alone making it twice, I have no explanation! But apart from silly mistakes like those, I'm always on time whenever I fly. As I said, time is very important to me.

Even my wife, a notoriously bad time manager, is always on time when it comes to flying. She is almost always late for everything else in life. Over 30 years of sharing my life with her, I've gone through many, many occasions of frustrations, annoyances, even anger when I'm put into a situation where I'm late because I was held back by her tardiness. I've come to get used to it and perhaps have even accepted it by now. After all - seriously now - how many lawyers that you know of are ever on time for appointments? I'd say maybe one in a million? The only time that I was very happy when my wife told me that she's "late" was when we were trying so hard to have a baby after 10 years of marriage.

I get annoyed when there is any delay in plane departures, but I can usually tolerate them because I give the airline the benefit of the doubt by reasoning to myself that it's all because of the safety of the passengers. That is of course not always the reason for delays. On many occasions, it's because some passengers are late and the captain is lenient on them. Filipino passengers, for example, have a curious habit of making sure that they're late to board the plane. Even if they can arrive early, they won't. They will see to it that they're the last persons to board the plane!

But anyway, I always make it a point to be punctual for my flights because I don't want to be the reason for flight delays, even if it's going to eat up just a few minutes of other passengers' time. That is why I have no pity for this traveller and his family for missing his flight because he arrived at the departure gate a few minutes late. 

His demand for a refund was rejected, and I fully support Air Asia for that decision. Before the Covid pandemic struck, I actually bought flights on Air Asia. But because of the ensuing total lockdown during the height of the pandemic, the flights were cancelled, and I was unable to get a refund from the online app. I've never forgiven Air Asia for that up to now! But my demand for a refund was for a totally different reason, and I'm still of the view that I deserve that refund! 

But anyway, the lesson to be learnt here is "DON'T BE LATE"! You have plenty of time to plan the journey to the airport. There should be no excuse whatsoever. And if some unforeseen circumstances arise, causing late arrival at the airport, that is not the airline's fault. Too bad, get over it!

The Head vs The Hate

I read with great interest the case of a caregiver in a childcare centre who was caught on CCTV abusing a 4-year-old boy [New Straits Times]. Apparently, the video clip of that incident had gone viral, but I find it strange that nobody had shared it with me yet. Perhaps that's because my friends knew that I would very rarely entertain video clips shared by friends. Although I did not see the video clip of the abuse, I can imagine what had happened based on the news article.

Then while checking out facebook last night, I stumbled upon video clips shared by some friends - this time of the parents of the boy at the childcare centre beating up the caregiver. This was apparently after they had discovered the identity of the person who abused their son, and then beating her up in retaliation. What's interesting to note was that the vast majority of those who commented on that post supported the aggression of the parents.

This reminds me of an old movie entitled Seven, starring Brat Pitt and Morgan Freeman.

That movie had nothing to do with child abuse, of course, but it demonstrated how a man in the profession of upholding the law can suddenly act against the law because of the hate in his heart. It's a very powerful movie to me, not just because it reflected how we humans have the tendency to act with the hate instead of with the head, when provoked, but also because at the end of that movie, I found myself saying that if I were in his shoes I might have done exactly the same thing!

In the same way, I find it a little disturbing that although what the parents did to the caregiver was legally wrong, I can totally understand why they did it. Again, what's even scarier is that if I were in their shoes, I might have done exactly the same thing! 

It takes a strong person to accept the reality that they are many bad people out there, but it takes an even stronger person not to become bad himself in retaliation to the wrongful act by others. On most days we can all be morally principled, calm and collected, and we will behave in a civilized manner. But there will be the last straw that breaks the camel's back, when all hell breaks loose. Every one has his limit to patience and calmness.

I can totally understand why the parents did what they did, but it's still legally wrong to act in such a manner. It is very easy for me to comment from the sideline that they shouldn't have done what they did. But if I were the father of the child, it's entirely possible that the caregiver may be bed-ridden in the intensive care unit right now. Therefore, I shall carefully refrain from saying what the parents should or should not have done. This whole incident is just an unfortunate event that could bring about either the best or the worst in a good person.

Education as an Investment

Almost 40 years ago, my younger brother obtained his Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results. It was a weak pass and nothing to shout about, but he still had the option to proceed to form six. However, he decided not to continue his studies because according to him there were many jobless university graduates. So there's very little point to pursue higher education because he'd end up jobless anyway. I debated that decision with him for a bit, but was unable to convince him otherwise. 

That was one of my biggest regrets in life. If I had in me, I would have dragged him by his hair to the school to register for form six. But then again, it's quite an uphill task to force anyone when it comes to pursuing higher education. When the heart is not there, the mind won't cooperate, and that is apt to end in failure anyway. As a result of  his decision, his life has been for the most part a huge struggle. Although he's sometimes gullible in nature, I consider him quite a bright chap, and had the brains to excel in his studies, and thereafter in life, if he had only put in the efforts.

In contrast, when I finished my Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM), although I was able to secure places in both local and foreign universities to further my education, I had no financial means to continue. In the end, I had to reluctantly enter the job market. I started saving, however, and after a few years, had barely enough to bear the cost for a distance-learning programme, leading to a degree. It was a huge struggle for those few years of my life because I had to work during the days, and then study in the evenings. My weekends were also mostly spent on my studies, especially when I was lagging in my assignments. In the few months leading to the exams in each semester, I had to wake up in the wee hours of the morning for the extra study hours, thus resulting in getting as little as 3 hours of sleep per night. When one is struggling and doing something unpleasant, time would seem stagnant. A few years may seem like eternity. It's very tempting to take the easy way out, which was to give up.

In the front page of a local paper today, it's reported that "only 34,461 students out of 40,147 who registered in Sabah sat for the SPM 2022 examination." The Chief Minister of Sabah wanted to know why. I suppose the State Education Department will embark on investigating the case shortly, but I will venture a possible reason. There are numerous reasons, of course, but it is possible that one of the major reasons is the one given by my brother all those years ago.

Investment in education may seem like a bad plan to many people. The cost of education has been rising steadily over the years. Comparing to the cost of 3 decades ago, the cost of education now has gone up by roughly three-folds, and it may be even higher than that depending on the field of specialization. Yet the salaries of university graduates, though have also gone up, are a far cry from the substantial increase in education cost. And that's not even taking into consideration that jobs are very hard to find to start with. Many graduates may be stuck in a limbo for a few years, hunting for a job that may never come. Many of them may also end up doing something that has nothing to do with whatever knowledge that they've gained from the universities. 

Perhaps my brother had a good point after all? If I could turn back the clock, would I decide on education any differently than how I decided almost 40 years ago? No, not really. I would still do it all over again exactly the same way!

What people should realize is that the thing about education, and university degrees in particular, is that that's not the finish line. Instead, that's just the start line. Having a diploma or degree does not automatically entitle the graduate to the higher-ranking jobs and lucrative salaries. Far from it, he must still work hard - and smart - to give the boss the reason why he deserves the big money. Way too many people, when seeking employment, assess their self-worth based on what they've spent for the education, instead of what they can contribute to the workplace. 

As far as the employers are concerned, the diploma and degree means very little if the employee can't measure up to the worth of those certificates by contributing to the company. In other words, the diploma or degree does not guarantee anything - they just open doors. What happens once the graduate steps out of those doors is entirely up to that graduate. The job market and the workplace are a competitive place. The competition does not end upon obtaining the degree.

Whether one's investment in education can generate high returns or not depends a lot on the graduate in the job market. If he enters the job market with the wrong mindset, then his career may quickly become stagnant. But if he has the right mindset and right attitude, he will find that the returns from investing in education can be very good. Either way, having the education is still better than having none. However, to repeat, like all other things in life, there is no guarantee.