Hiring remote foreigners? Slow your roll, hotshot

"If I allow remote work, I'd be better off hiring programmers in Vietnam."

Sound familiar? Because that is the sound of millions of employers all over the world repeating the same old tired line. If I had a penny every time I heard some small-time Towkay-wannabe mouth off about how they'd save so much money by hiring foreign workers remotely rather than letting local talent work from home, I'd be absolutely rolling in it.

If I had a penny...

If you think this makes me sound dismissive, that's because I am. I am dismissing this line as nothing but bluster and hot air. And sit tight; I'm also about to explain why... in the Singapore context, naturally.

When it makes sense

If it's a huge MNC like, say, IBM, whose head office is in the USA and opening a regional office in Singapore, then yes, it makes total sense. Because they're already doing it. Their hiring and legal infrastructures are made for this. Even if the company is not at the scale of a large corporation, but still a respectable size, it might still make sense. It has to; plenty of these companies are doing it. The alternative is that all of them went nuts at exactly the same time... which is scarily plausible in these crazy times.

A game of expansion.

When hiring is done by the book, the host country (in this case, Singapore) and the remote country (in this case, Vietnam), both have agencies that will handle the legalities. I know because I've worked as an Agency Contractor before. These are absolutely a thing.

And of course, these agencies aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They're a business; they expect to get paid. This will eat into whatever employers think they're saving by hiring foreign workers, remote or otherwise. But that's OK - even if these tech companies don't save that much per foreign worker they hire, at scale, it tends to add up. Enormously.

When it makes less sense

A tiny tech startup trying to follow in the footsteps of a large corporation without understanding basic realities of scale, is on what I would charitably refer to as a "fool's errand". How many would such a company hire? Five programmers? Maybe ten? Whatever the company saves in wages, is nowhere what a larger company saves when hiring hundreds of these people. And if that pittance actually counts as a win, I would be deeply concerned about the finances of said company.

You sure you can
follow in those
footsteps?

I remember a time when Steve Jobs was considered the man to emulate. He was known to be a bit of an asshole, but he had undeniable talent, and thus he succeeded in spite of being hard to work for, or with. People took it to mean that in order to be as successful as Steve Jobs, one had to be an asshole. The end result was that we had quite a few Jobs-wannabes - basically talentless assholes with big dreams and even bigger mouths.

My point is, imitation may be the highest form of flattery; but for those ill-equipped to carry out said imitation, it becomes a liability quickly.

Also, consider this: any employer who isn't comfortable with employees working remotely on an island as small as Singapore, will be significantly less comfortable with employees working remotely out of Singapore.

If your employer is threatening to stop all this WFH nonsense by hiring more WFH programmers from beyond Singapore's shores, it doesn't take a genius to understand that the math does not quite add up.

When it starts being stupid

And it's at this point, where some employers will go, "Well, I'll just skip the red tape and hire direct from Vietnam, then."

Really? You're going to bypass all the legal and pertinent protections that hiring through the proper channels brings you?

How well do you know your own local employees, much less ones you hire from overseas? Do you know their residential address? And even assuming it's a verifiable genuine address, have you ever tried to navigate Vietnam using just a residential address without any understanding of the local language and conventions?

Pray tell, if the foreign software developer whom you don't know from Adam (or Minh, or Rajasamy) decides to sell your IP to the highest bidder, introduce malware into your code base or do any manner of damaging and illegal acts for profit or simply for amusement, how well do you expect to enforce your legal rights? Remember, they're not operating in Singapore, your home turf. Unlike local employees, these are foreign developers under a different jurisdiction where legal enforcement is already significantly harder - now made even more difficult because, y'know, you so cleverly bypassed the proper channels.

That's just the most extreme cases. Let's consider some less extreme but still very real considerations.

Time zones aren't that big an issue. This being Southeast Asia, assuming the employer is not adventurous (or foolhardy) enough to hire from further abroad, the time differences are off by a couple hours at most - an hour tops in the case of Vietnam. It'll need work, but it can work.

What's arguably a bigger issue, is culture. Just because you are all presumably communicating in English does not mean you speak the same language. Nuance gets lost in translation, especially if you're speaking through a computer screen. Honestly, colleagues have enough problems just communicating face-to-face, in the same culture, in the same language.

Don't cut through
this red tape.

And the most relevant question of all: Why, in the name of all that's right and holy, would anyone put themselves in this position just to save a few thousand bucks a month? Does a company that needs to save that kind of chump change so badly, really inspire confidence in you as an employee?

Anyone old enough to run a business, is too old to be this fucking dumb.

Hiring foreigners isn't foolish inherently. Hiring foreigners remotely isn't either, though significantly riskier. Hiring foreigners remotely without going through the proper channels? Reckless, and potentially illegal. Don't do it.

Conclusion and disclaimer

This is not meant to be any kind of statement against Vietnam. Vietnam absolutely does have a wealth of tech talent at affordable prices. I've worked with quite a few. I was only using Vietnam as a convenient example. I could easily have said Myanmar or India.

My point isn't that employers shouldn't hire foreigners remotely. My point is that it's not something that can just be hand-waved. Employers who have the experience and capability to carry this out, won't be talking about it because they are already - as Nike likes to say - just doing it. Or at the very least, taking cautious first steps. And the ones who are bringing it up casually as leverage during a discussion about remote work, will in all probability continue to just talk.

Your employer is not stupid. But if he's using hiring remote foreigners as a threat, he probably really hopes you are.

Tạm biệt hẹn gặp lại,
T___T

Film Review: Black Mirror Series Seven, Redux (Part 2/3)

The next episode is Eulogy, and it's a bit of a mood whiplash from the preceding episode, but just as good, if not better.

The Premise

Philip receives a call that his old flame Carol has passed away. In order to collect recollections for her memorial, Philip goes through a program by Eulogy designed to read his memories, unearthing some interesting ones...

The Characters

Paul Giamatti absolutely knocks it out of the park in the role of Philip Connarty. Philip is a surly, bitter, cranky old guy. Giamatti carried this episode by serving up an entire buffet of emotional delivery. He also serves as narrator for most of the recollections. He gives us a moving portrayal of a deeply flawed man who loved passionately, experienced guilt, lashed out in anger, and finds closure in forgiveness. Giamatti was immediately recognizable to me as the antagonist in Shoot Em Up. Upon watching this episode, I gained a newfound respect for this man's range.

Patsy Ferran as Kelly Royce, Carol's daughter and the AI that serves Eulogy. She acted as the foil to Philip's general grumpiness, appearing upbeat and chirpy most of the time, occasionally delivering quite the witty barb. The meat of this episode belonged to Giamatti, but without Ferran to play off against, it wouldn't have worked as well.

There were plenty of others in the cast, but they either had no speaking parts, extremely limited screen time or merely appeared as still images... or all at the same time.

The Mood

It begins with a scene of an elderly man trimming rose bushes in some quiet countryside or other. A very placid scene. And the pacing stays slow and steady even as more upsetting memories and twists are revealed. There's a pervading sense of sorrow, old anger and sentimentality, though at no point does the viewer get the sense that anyone is in any particular danger. It's not that kind of Black Mirror episode, and yet it absolutely works.

What I liked

It's a very small cast. Only two actors have any sort of work to do - the rest either appear in non-speaking and/or non-moving roles. Thus, it's up to Paul Giamatti and Patsy Ferran to hold up this episode all by themselves. And these two, quite amazingly, get it done.

Black Mirror is famously full of violence, vulgarity and downer endings. On the rare occasion when things get sentimental and sweet, like now, even admidst the sorrow permeating the episode, it really hits home.

The visuals are amazing. They give us a pretty darn good idea of what it's like to virtually dive into a still photograph, and have AI render everything in 3D. The side effects of Philip using sharpies and knives to erase Carol's face from photographs, are disturbingly rendered as well. It's glorious... with just a hint of spooky.

What I didn't

DHL sending the package by drone was a detail I could have done without. That was so out of left field. I don't actually think drone delivery is too far-fetched, though having it take place in such a casual manner, probably is. There are regulatory issues to think about, especially since the company Eulogy is in the UK and Philip is in the USA or something. And it wasn't even really relevant to the story.

Still, it's a very minor detail in what was otherwise an excellent episode.

Conclusion

This episode was genius. It had the Black Mirror DNA - fantastical tech being used in novel ways, flawed characters acting out and inevitable human tragedy. Though, in this case, the tech brings about a somewhat happy ending. This might actually be my favorite episode in an above-average season of Black Mirror.

My Rating

9.5 / 10

Next

USS Callister: Into Infinity

Seriously, why try to cook Sam Altman?

It's no secret my opinion of Sam Altman isn't exactly high. To me, he's one of those snake oil salesmen that continually hypes up a product that, while interesting in limited scopes, is nowhere what it's purported to be. And he exudes the low-effort vibe of a con artist who flourishes not by being smarter than others, but by picking raving idiots as his target audience.

That said, I don't dislike the man, and bear him no ill will. And I certainly was not among those who cheered when one Daniel Moreno-Gama lobbed a Molotov cocktail at his home last April, then threatened to set fire to the OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, USA. 

The threat.

What was his reason? Apparently, "AGI poses a threat to humanity and therefore it must be stopped." Come on, now. Really?

AGI

I don't know what this guy has been smoking, but that brand of AI that Sam Altman and his ilk have been forcing down our collective throats, LLMs, barely qualifies as AI, much less AGI. Before anyone jumps on my back, I'll concede that LLMs are incredibly useful. And when you compare them against their predecessor - autocomplete - a massive technological leap in terms of scale, pattern-matching and the like. However, calling them "intelligence" just tells me that your standards aren't particularly high.

How many times have we been promised that AGI is near? How many times has it not materialized? Countless, and countless. The simple fact of the matter is, this tech exists for a reason, and it's not to better the lives of humanity.

Smoke and mirrors
in service of the
almighty dollar.

No, like everything else, it's meant to make money.

AGI might make money once it actually exists in the real world rather than the fevered imagination of fanboys and science fiction enthusiasts, but it costs too much to get there. Meanwhile, faking AGI costs a lot less and satisfies the lower-level requirements. Who needs real creativity when you can simulate it? Who can even tell what actual creativity is?

So, if AGI is nowhere near, what's there to stop?

Humanity

Do human beings suck in general? Well yes, and I don't think that's ever been a controversial statement. But do we suck more just because of AI? We certainly suck more visibly. We have all manner of rubbish created by generative AI, churned out by people who have way too much time on their hands. Deepfakes. Nonsensical clips of Michael Jackson fighting Bruce Lee. AI porn.

AI generation of
Michael Jackson vs Bruce Lee

AI was the tool that made all this possible; but make no mistake, human beings are the ones who should be blamed for how it's used. If you're going to blame AI, why stop there? Blame Social Media. Blame the damn Internet.

I would argue that humanity's greatest threat is humanity. Not AI. If we're already our greatest threat, a pale imitation of ourselves isn't going to do a better job of ending us. It's just not.

Killing Sam Altman

Finally and most obviously, killing Sam Altman isn't going to do jackshit to stop the progress of AGI, assuming it's even progressing. For the obvious reason that Sam Altman does not represent the technological forefront of AI. (Though ChatGPT would probably disagree.)

Ergo, if AGI does indeed exist, it's not inside OpenAI.

Burn it down... and then what?

And all right, let's assume that this one douchebag techbro Sam Altman is behind AGI. You think you can destroy the code just by killing the CEO and firebombing the office? Son, it's 2026. Cloud services are a thing. They've been a thing for years.

Also, is Altman the only one far enough ahead in the race to matter? Think of all the other AI from big tech companies. Microsoft's Copilot. Google's Gemini AI. Meta's Meta AI - actually, I take that last one back. My point is, OpenAI is far from the only culpable one here. What exactly is killing Altman going to accomplish; scare all of them into not doing their usual thing? Good luck!

The fiery conclusion

All this is preposterous. Even overlooking the fact that killing a person just because you believe he heralds the inevitable doom of humanity, is morally questionable and definitely very illegal; the reasons for even going there make no damn sense. Daniel Moreno-Gama isn't the hero he imagines he is. But maybe he should stop watching so many Terminator movies.

Come with me if you want to live burn AI to the ground!
T___T

JavaScript's non-existent relationship to Java

Despite the fact that I can no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, be referred to as a "beginner" where my career is concerned, I sometimes do like to read beginner books on tech. It's oddly soothing. There's also plenty I can learn in terms of how to communicate tech concepts and ideas, from the authors of such books, if not the actual tech itself.

And this is one such book that I picked up from the neighborhood library recently - How to be a Web Developer, by Radu Nicoara.

This book.

Now, this isn't one of my Reference Reviews - I didn't finish reading the book and this would be dishonest. Radu Nicorara probably knows his way around the building blocks of the World Wide Web and has, again, probably done a whole lot more than I have. After all, he published a book. And I give him all the credit in the world for even attempting it.

However...

...once I got to Page 60 (or thereabouts), I encountered a statement that was so egregious that it took me out of reading the book entirely. Not that I ever found the book all that engaging in the first place.

This passage shocked me.

JavaScript is a scripting language (meaning the code is not precompiled) that's derived from the Java programming language, hence the name.

I was in complete disbelief when I saw this. Just to be sure, I sent a photograph of the page to Meta AI, and Meta AI being the nice little bot it was, it described the passage as "a bit misleading".

A bit misleading?! Try "completely false".

The error

For anyone who might be tempted to repeat this, JavaScript is not derived from Java. Aside from the fact that they may both be described as programming languages (coding pedants may insist that in JavaScript's case, it's a loose description) they don't actually have anything to do with each other.

JavaScript began life as a loosely-typed client-side language meant for browsers to interpret. Java was (and still is) a strongly-typed compiled programming language. The names are similar, and the syntaxes are similar. But that's where the similarities end, and even these similarities can't be used as evidence for JavaScript's relationship to Java.

In fact, JavaScript's original name was Mocha. Yes, as in the coffee. It was changed to "JavaScript" as some kind of marketing ploy to mislead people into thinking it was a child of Java. Well, guess it worked!

Fancy a cuppa Mocha, luv?

This reminds me of an encounter on the Clubhouse app where I heard some American woman make the ridiculous claim that in the Chinese language, "the words for danger and opportunity are the same".  John F Kennedy, the 35th President of the USA, was the first to say this back in 1960, and he was wrong. In Chinese, danger is "危机" and opportunity is "机会". Both words contain the word "机", but "机" is also a suffix commonly used to describe machines such as "飞机" (flying machine, a.k.a aeroplane), "手机" (hand machine, a.k.a mobile phone) and "耳机" (ear machine, a.k.a earphones). At the risk of stating the painfully obvious - aeroplanes, mobile phones and earphones have fuck-all to do with danger or opportunity, just as JavaScript has no relation to Java.

Which tells us a couple things - just because two words sound the same or contain subsets of each other, does not make the things they are describing, related. Thus, just because Java and JavaScript both contain the words "Java", it doesn't follow that they're related in any way. The second thing this tells us is, if you don't speak a language, maybe keep the witty quotes to a minimum unless looking stupid brings you deep emotional satisfaction.

As for syntax, both Java and JavaScript's syntax is based on C. Curly brackets, semi-colons, function declarations and so on. But this similarity is not confined to Java and JavaScript. Several other languages such as PHP and C# also have great syntax similarities with Java. In terms of similarity, C# is even closer to Java than JavaScript is.

All in all...

It's not my intention to jump on Nicoara for this error. Whomever his editor was, shares the blame for this. And this glaring factual error aside, what little I read of his book seemed sensible. Therefore, I didn't contact Nicoara and inform him of this boo-boo. What good would it do? It's not like one can un-publish this book.

Besides, I'm not exactly perfect. Early in my blogging days, I probably made my fair share of factual errors. Though, in all fairness, it's not like I'm profiting off my blog, or asking people to pay for it.

All that aside, I used this as a teachable moment. Even if that little piece of programming history I taught was dryer than a nun's coochie.

Java nice day!
T___T

Film Review: Mercy

Picture this - three years from now, in the year 2029, the state of crime in the USA has devolved to the point where Artificial Intelligence now handles the jobs of judge, jury and executioner. That's the dystopian environment in which this movie takes place, and it obviously caught my interest because, AI. (Also, Rebecca Ferguson. Mmm mmm.)

That, in a nutshell, is Mercy. A telling of a tale set in a dystopian American future.

Much of the movie is in screenlife format - in fact, the director is Timur Bekmambetov, who also did Unfriended and Searching. And - ugh - War of the Worlds 2025.

Warning - major spoilers ahead!

This actually makes the movie sound more exciting than it really is. I assure you, other than the odd twist here and there, there are almost no surprises in this one. Consequently, whatever I reveal here could hardly count as a spoiler, much less a major one.

The Premise

Chris Raven awakes to find himself in an AI-controlled courtroom where he is being tried for the crime of murder. His guilt has been set at a level of 98%, and he has to use all material at his disposal to bring that figure down to 92%, within 90 minutes.

The Characters

A barely likeable Chris Pratt as detective Chris Raven. Pratt is actually a decent actor when he puts his mind to it despite that annoyingly distracting chiselled jawline. I know this because I recently saw him in The Terminal List, and he just about blew me away with the intensity of his performance. He takes things up a notch for this movie.

Rebecca Ferguson is largely underutilized as Judge Maddox, the AI personality presiding over Raven's case. It's a failed endeavour. I say this because from what Ive seen of Ferguson in the Mission Impossible and Dune movies, this woman is incapable of a bad performance. But wasting her hugely expressive face and undeniable acting chops for the robotic role of an AI... now this should be a crime, dammit.

Kali Reis as Jaq Diallo. Last saw her in True Detective: Night Country. That neck tattoo was hella distracting, but I'd recognize those badass vibes anywhere. She was a tad one-dimensional here, but still awesome.

Chris Sullivan as Rob Nelson, who's actually secretly the brother of David Webb. He's out for revenge against Chris Raven and the Mercy Court. Did the nice guy act a little too well at the start, which immediately led me to think he was hiding something.

Jeff Pierre as Patrick Burke. Sleazy dirtbag who used cooking and conversation as a way to seduce a married woman. Felt zero sympathy for the ass-kicking he eventually got. Which means the actor did a fantastic job here.

Rafi Gavron is the ultra-suspicious Holt Charles. Looks like a little rat, and really leaned into it. I respect the craft that went into his limited appearance.

Kenneth Choi as dead partner Ray Vale. I dunno if this is Prototype Bias, but this little Asian dude looked the furthest thing from a cop imaginable.

Annabelle Wallis as Nicole Raven, Chris Raven's murdered wife. Not a very likeable character even if we're supposed to sympathize with her for having a alcoholic husband. Something about the character just came across as whiny.

Kylie Rogers plays Britt Raven, the daughter of Chris Raven. The kid did well. She met the emotional beats and did the whole supporting cast member thing to a tee. Not a step out of place.

Ross Gosla as David Webb. Honestly, when I heard the name, I thought this might be a Jason Bourne tie-in. No such luck. Gosla doesn't say much in the role - it's meant for backstory purposes.

Mark Daneri cameos as as Chris Raven's father-in-law. What a sanctimonous prick. I was amused by that performance. It was way too short, though.

The Mood

The entire show physically takes place within the sterile confines of an AI-powered courtroom. However, one could be forgiven for forgetting that fact because a lot of the story is told in flashbacks and video sequences. It starts off as a whodunit, with the protagonist racing against time to prove his own innocence.

There's a fair bit of action around the last third of the movie with a bomb threat and a vehicular chase scene, but by then most of the mystery is gone and it's basically straight-up action thriller territory.

What I liked

The begininning expository sequence was neatly tied into the introduction of the system that Raven wakes up to. It was a nice stylistic choice - the startup sequence that also serves as exposition.

The futuristic vehicle Jaq is riding for most of the car chase sequences, is beyond cool. It's like this sleek hover bike.

I did enjoy the little VR sequences where things happening in real-time are reflecting in an AI-regenerated reality happening around Chris Raven. So an explosion happening miles away looks like it's happening right around him. Very cool.

What I didn't

The movie is set in 2029, only a few years from now. I'm supposed to believe that in the space of a few years, the American Justice System would have devolved to one that presumes guilt, has no legal representation and a joke of a due process? As crazy as the world is today, that's a tough sell. And the movie does not come close to selling that ridiculous premise to me.

Nelson's plan made no sense. Instead of going for Jaq who's arguably the bigger villain, he chose the long-ass route of befriending Chris and Nicole, and then murdering Nicole. This was a headscratcher.

Jaq's motivations for destroying evidence also made no sense. David Webb being found innocent due to evidence being correctly processed, would also serve to show that the system was working as intended.

The little twists kind of predictable. Come on, who didn't see the reveals coming?

Chris Raven stops snivelling and starts getting into detective mode when his life is on the line, viewing everything through a compartmentalized, professional lens. This was nice to see, but unfortunately, it also highlighted why the rules governing the Mercy Court are impractical to begin with. Chris Raven, a trained police detective, manages to obtain the evidence neccessary and plead his case sufficiently to prove his innocence to the AI. But even he barely makes it within the time limit, which basically means the average layperson has no chance in hell.

Conclusion

It was an interesting idea, marred by an implausible plot, unfathomable logic and unrelatable motivations. There were some nice spots in between, but not enough to make this qualify as "watchable". The screenlife format is no longer a novelty, and it's no longer an adequate selling point on its own.

My Rating

5 / 10

Guilty as charged,
T___T

TeochewThunder: Year Eleven (Part 2/2)

Things don't look that good from a viewership standpoint this year compared to last year, but then, they rarely do. I've noticed this for years now. I look at the numbers for this current year and shake my head, only to realize that these numbers tend to double after the passing of another year.

The end result is that the current year's viewership always looks inferior to the previous year's. It's not necessarily the case. Just needs time to settle into the internet.

That said, let's get into the weeds of what apparent successes there are.

Huge hits

I talked about COVID-19, didn't I? And apparently, it hit a chord. The Dark Years of COVID-19: A Software Developer's Perspective was the undisputed winner, hands down.

Do techies lean Liberal or Conservative? was the culmination of a few weeks of frustration as I watched Social Media go mad over the movie Superman and Sydney Sweeney's jeans. And also some rumination I've had over DEI.

What great genes jeans!

Full-time Pay, Part-time Job was something I wrote on the spur of the moment, after witnessing Jeremy Tan's epic speech during the eve of the Polling Day 2025. It inspired me to pen this down, and if I'm being honest, it's not one of my more thought-out works. Still, it doesn't matter; the popularity of the topic and Jeremy Tan, carried the day for this blogpost.

Replit Goes Rogue was a recent addition, but its trajectory is on the rise. Despite being posted less than a month, its numbers are really promising.

OK-ish

So many posts fell into this category. Either huge things were expected for them and they failed by just doing decently, or they punched above their weight.

Why people should (and shouldn't) hire older software developers was just more comparison between younger and older developers.

How much of the Artificial Intelligence hype is just hot air? I suspect this struck a chord with much of the anti-AI brigade, which has been gathering momentum.

What Iswaran's sentence means for those in positions of authority were some thoughts on authority and responsibility. Not so much tech, more workplace-related.

A vacation!

A Software Developer's Vacation in Malacca. A fun piece, with lots of pictures!

Not My Job, Not My Problem is more of a commentary on the workplace, rather than anything tech.

Finally, The Silencing of Charlie Kirk and what it means for Social Media, was written two days after Charlie Kirk was felled by an assassin's bullet. As to be expected, it caught fire fast and it's probably only in this category because of its late inclusion. Some readers called it "balanced". The funny thing is, in the toxic climate that is the USA's Culture Wars, this piece would be vilified by both sides.

Artificial Intelligence Experts join Meta... but it's not about the money? Really? was me responding to more tech news.

Duds

These were the ones that barely raised a whimper. Mostly technical posts which is a tragedy because, well, this is a tech blog. Sorry, not sorry. This is actually in line with the assignment, so I'm gonna keep doing these, regardless.

JavaScript now has negative indexing... sort of was just a report on a new JavaScript function I discovered. It wasn't even that new. And probably I need to work on my presentation because the views suggested that readers found it boring AF.

Is Repeating The Password Field Really Necessary? More of a UI/UX thing. Maybe not the most interesting blogpost in the world, but I think it needed to be written.

Meta Ditches the Fact-checkers - now, I really expected a hell of a lot more out of this one. Either people aren't interested in seeing me shit on Meta, or they just aren't very interested in Meta, period. On the other hand, as mentioned, Artificial Intelligence Experts join Meta... but it's not about the money? Really? did OK, so I really don't know.

Bailing from Meta.

While we're at it, it appears that at this time of writing, in a bizarre twist, AI experts have left Meta (and all that money) to join some startup. This in no way invalidates my previously implied point that Meta is a deeply problematic company that one would join only if the financial reward was great... the fact that people are not staying in spite of the money, only further reinforces the point.

But this hardly warrants a blogpost all on its own, so... just gonna leave it here.

Thunderation!

Been a pleasure, as always. I love working on this blog, but I also look forward to the annual blogging break. It's where I can get things reset and take stock of the year ahead.

Dialling it up to eleven, yo!
T___T

Film Review: Black Mirror Series Six, Redux (Part 1/2)

It's time to resume this review of Black Mirror Series Six. And while I've been largely complimentary of this installment so far, things are about to get significantly less positive.

The fourth episode is Mazey Day, and really, it's just the name of one of the characters. Given the lack of creativity shown thus far with regard to episode titles, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, much less disappointed.

The Premise

The story is set in Los Angeles, USA, and centers around a freelance photographer. She and some others violate the privacy of a celebrity, Mazey Day, only to find a nasty surprise waiting for them.

The Characters

Zazie Beetz is her bubbly engaging self as Bo, a photographer who has an attack of conscience. I've always found her immensely watchable in films like Deadpool 2, Joker and Bullet Train. This time, she gets to show off some acting chops by portraying Bo as someone who's desperate for work, but not willing to compromise her ethics all the way. She's also probably the most obvious shutterbug around, having been caught twice in this episode while trying to be sneaky. I found myself wondering how this character survives this profession!

Clara Rugaard as Mazey Day, an actress who later on becomes a werewolf. The portrayal was kind of bland, to be honest. Just not very compelling, though perhaps the blame can be laid at the feet of whoever wrote the script.

Danny Ramirez as Hector. Not really sure what the character's function was here. Just another warm body for the werewolf to savage?

Robbie Tann as Whitty, a sociopathic jerk who likes to run his mouth. Some of the stuff he says is cold and unnecessarily cruel but contains some uncomfortable truths.

James P. Rees as Duke, a sleazy shutterbug who tries to take upskirt pics of Sydney Alberti. Rees plays him as a mouthy dirtbag, and no tears are shed when the character eventually gets eaten.

Jack Bandeira has a dual-purpose character, Terry the talkative bartender. He's chatty (and blond, and blue-eyed, astonishingly good-looking, really) and provided Bo with a lot of plot-pertinent information. Later on, he also functions as a casualty in the diner, accidentally shot dead by the lawman, no less.

Kenneth Collard as Dr Dmitri Babich, a celeb doctor who's into alternative medicine. Didn't do much with a largely expository role.

Corey Johnson as Clay the police officer who is, quite amusingly, really into eating chicken. I do like it when characters ramble on about stuff that doesn't necessarily tie in to the plot. It feels relatable, somehow.

David Rysdahl is Bo's housemate Nathan. He's played as passive-aggressive and annoys the hell out of me. Which I suppose is pretty effective acting because it's a major plot point that Bo wants to pay Nathan her late share of the rent.

Charles Hagerty plays Justin Camley in an extremely short appearance, as a TV actor who gets caught having a tryst with a gay partner. He appeared all of a few seconds, but I thought the actor was worth mentioning because he made the character's desperation and frustration really shine through.

Patrick Toomey is Nick, the one who pays these shutterbugs to take incriminating photographs for his scandal reporting. Toomey plays this limited role with the appropriate amount of smarminess.

Lucía Pemán also makes a short appearance as actress Sydney Alberti, who has a sex tape leaked. The purpose of this character is pretty much just to have Whitty and Duke show off what douchebags they are.

The Mood

It's a dusty atmosphere in the sunlight, but soon switches to a dim, dark color palette as the story begins taking place in the night. And soon enough, it turns into a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with a ravaging beast. Basic monster movie fare, really.

Later on, it's a drawn-out tragedy when Bo gives Mazey a gun to kill herself with.

What I liked

I groaned and cheered in equal measure when Whitty met his grisly end after refusing to escape while he could, and continue to take pictures of a still-transforming Mazey. The trope of passion for his craft outweighing common sense was strong here, but also because the character was such a jerk, watching him get wrecked was cathartic.

Whitty and Duke finding out about Cedarwood Spa Retreat by placing a tracker on Hector's bike. This is so character-appropriate!

The unnamed actor who players the security detail that slashes Bo's tyres is so suitably menacing and nonchalant at the same time. I heartily approve.

The episode ends with Bo taking a photograph after giving Mazey the means to off herself. It's what got her into this mess in the first place, and this is darkly poetic.

What I didn't

The showrunners might not have meant to draw attention to this tattoo under Bo's navel, but draw attention they did and now I want to know why. It's never addressed. I'm a Chinese man and I know the character for "snake" when I see it. Question is, what significance does this have? Or was this to tell us that Bo, like too many non-Chinese educated people, have an unfortunate habit of inking words on their skin in languages they can't even read?

Bo finds out where Mazey is staying by accidentally running into a food delivery worker who just happened to deliver to that address. Seems a bit convenient, no? And Bo didn't even have to pay for the information, that's the best part.

It doesn't make sense that Bo wouldn't just take the 500 that Justin offered, for her photos. It's not the first time she's working for that cheap bastard Nick, so she has to know he's going to low-ball her.

Speaking of things that don't make sense, how does Cedarwood have this big-ass fence that can be defeated by digging under the fence, just like that? The soil is even conveniently loose!

This was not a tech episode, though a case could be made for it being centered around media. Still, this detracts from Black Mirror being less science fiction and more supernatural horror. I can't say I approve, really. Black Mirror has been around long enough to have its own identity. It's not like Black Mirror is in the stages of infancy, still trying to figure out what it is.

Conclusion

This episode had decent scares, a decent plot and an OK ending. It, however, doesn't really seem to qualify as a Black Mirror episode due to the supernatural elements involved.

My Rating

6 / 10

Next

Demon 79

The Silencing of Charlie Kirk, and what this means for Social Media

The term "cancelled" has, in recent years, been taken to mean the same thing as being deplatformed, or demonetized. To remove someone's ability to reach larger audiences. To have someone fired from their jobs.

It took on new horrifying meaning this week when Charlie Kirk was murdered by an assassin's bullet in the middle of a public appearance at Utah Valley University in the USA. Kirk was a Right-wing activist who espoused ideals such as Pro-life, the Right to Bear Arms (the irony, huh?) and other typical Right-wing talking points.

Shot through
the neck.

I recognized Kirk from the news, because this guy had occasionally shown up on my YouTube feed, debating some hopelessly outmatched student or other. I never lingered overlong on those clips, simply because they just weren't very interesting. To be fair, it wasn't him, it was me. On YouTube, I have a below-average attention span unless it's tech-related.

Which in turn, begs the question: why am I even talking about this? The death of a Right-wing activist, while significant on a human level, is hardly a tech matter. On the other hand, I have spoken before about the bizarre Left-versus-Right culture wars in the USA, and the way it's played out on Social Media. I have talked before about how troubling our online discourse has become, even as I acknowledge that it's nowhere as frightening as that of the USA. And human matters are relevant in tech. Who do you think uses tech, robots?

In truth, when I wrote about the Culture Wars two months back, I was really hoping this would be the last time, at least for a bit. No such luck; the death of Charlie Kirk is pretty compelling stuff.

About Charlie Kirk

This entire episode was a tragedy, though not specifically because it was Charlie Kirk who died. According to some of the eulogies I've seen online, Kirk was quite the guy among his peers; and on the other side of the political aisle, a racist, misogynist, fascist and transphobe, among other fancy labels.

You know, I don't think any of that matters. Good guy or bad guy, Charles James Kirk was at least someone's son, someone's husband, and someone's dad. Two kids will grow up not knowing what their father was like except through those lame-ass YouTube videos and online articles, both gushing and brutal. I'm not going to sit here and act like Kirk and I were best pals or I was his biggest fan. The truth is, to me, he was just some rando on the internet whose opinions I sometimes agreed with and sometimes didn't. And he could come off as smug and condescending.

The thing is, being smug and condescending isn't grounds for public execution. Remember, Charlie Kirk was an activist who apparently ran his mouth a lot. And like most of the human race, sometimes he was prone to saying stupid shit. That's not a crime. It wasn't like he was a child molester or a serial killer. Or a Justin Bieber fan. If having an opinion and being a dick about it was reason enough for death, I know of more than a few people who should be joining Kirk in his six-foot grave. And yes, I include myself in that assessment.

If you've ever said stupid
shit, jump in here.

I've seen people use Kirk's position on the Second Amendment as justification to celebrate his death.

I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.

Those voices are saying that Kirk made the above abhorrent statement, and as a result we shouldn't feel too bad about him dying from a bullet to the neck. Our own Professor Donald Low literally said "Karma's a bitch" on his Facebook post. 

To be honest, that's probably one of the stupidest excuses ever. Look, you can feel morally superior to Kirk if you want. But you can't declare yourself morally superior to him and then in the same breath lower yourself to his level to justify his death. This defies all logic. Stuff like this only reinforces my deeply-held belief that Social Media is full of raving idiots acting all intellectual.

Cancel Culture

People are shocked. Goodness knows why. Maybe people are shocked because Kirk wasn't holding the front line in Ukraine, where getting shot is kind of expected. He was at an educational institute in peacetime. In one moment, Charlie Kirk went from passionate public orator to bloodied corpse. That's probably the most extreme form of Cancel Culture. After all, you can't get any more cancelled than dead, can you?

In the grand scheme of things, though, was this really that unexpected? I would argue that the shooting was merely the latest in a long time of steadily escalating aggression towards people who espouse unpopular views. Except that before this, instead of simply ending their lives, we were content with merely ruining theirs.

Anyone who's ever tried to get someone else cancelled. Fired. Doxxed. Called the cops on them. All because they said something we didn't like. Anyone who's ever engaged in behavior like this, or even just cheered while it happened, has contributed in some small way to the state of affairs today. Because all that provided the stepping stones of acceptable behavior.

Hello, Police? Someone hurt
my feelings on Facebook.

Come on, we had to expect that eventually, the approval of ruining someone's life or doling out of physical violence would lead to this. It was always par for the course. Once you say that it's OK to ruin someone's life because they said something you considered offensive, you make room for that next escalation.

Singapore herself isn't entirely immune to violence of this sort, though thankfully so far none of it has been fatal. Do people still remember Amos Yee? He ran his mouth a whole bunch, and famously got slapped by an outraged citizen. Kirsten Han, an outspoken activist for a whole hosts of causes I can't begin to keep track of, got death threats.

I personally consider Amos Yee a loud and annoying housefly, and Kirsten Han a bit of a wanker, but I condone neither the violence nor the threats. I can't. I like to talk shit on the internet, and don't particularly want to be shot by some putz with a gun. Not that I think I'm next in line. Plenty of people far more famous than me. If you're going to shoot someone at all, you might as well go big, eh? Still, the principle stands. All of us should be able to say what we want to say without the threat of violence hanging over our heads.

Speaking of Cancel Culture, I've seen posts online celebrating the death of Kirk, followed by threats from others to report these posts and have these users outed and punished. Just a lot of ugliness all round.  Has the USA finally stopped pretending that they give a damn about Freedom of Speech?

What's next?

Earlier, I said that this was a tragedy, and now I'm about to elaborate on why. It's not simply that Charlie Kirk was killed. Let's be real, people die every day. This isn't more or less tragic just because it's Kirk who bought the farm.

However, this particular death has stoked what looks like a new escalation in the Culture Wars. It's now no longer just being fought on Social Media. People on the Right are riled up over the murder of one of their own, and people on the Left are afraid of some nutter retaliating. 

What if this was always the plan?

Donald Trump declared Leftist extremists to be responsible for Kirk's death. But this wasn't some pissed off nutjob losing his temper and simply letting loose with a gun. This looked like a carefully planned op with a sniper.

This was planned.

Kirk has been silenced, but perhaps that wasn't the main objective. Perhaps the entire point was to stoke a Civil War. Who really wins in this scenario?

Come on, pretty sure I'm not the only one thinking this. Anyone who isn't dramatically raising their fist to the sky and declaring we will not be silenced or explaining why the world is a better place without Charlie Kirk, watching all this from a distance, is wondering if there's some other motive behind this. If you're not thinking this, you're probably too close to the action. Or you simply belong in a less complicated, less nuanced world.

On the other hand, regardless of the actual motivation behind the killing, one thing remains unchanged. Kirk's murder has opened the floodgates to what was previously unthinkable.

Public discourse is no longer safe. The perception is that Kirk was murdered for his views. This should make anyone with an opinion that they have ever shared, exceedingly nervous. Especially if that opinion was unpopular and exists somewhere on the internet.

In a world filled with AI and deepfakes, where misinformation is more readily available than information, the danger grows exponentially. Imagine a world where one can be killed for airing an unpopular opinion, and where people could be tricked into believing one aired an unpopular opinion. Do the math. The conclusions are chilling.

Finally...

People say America is the Land of the Free, and constantly compare Singapore's perceived lack of freedoms against the USA's. Land of the Free? Free what, exactly? Free Charlie Kirk's soul from his mortal shell?

I'm glad I live in Singapore. Our forefathers realized early on that with excessive freedom, we would either rise to great heights or sink to our basest instincts. As a young nation with no natural resources, no land and not that much manpower, we simply could not afford the risk. Thus, our laws are strict, and as a result, what happened to Charlie Kirk is unlikely to happen here.

If this is the result of America's much vaunted freedoms, she can keep it.

Talk about a loaded situation!
T___T

Film Review: Black Mirror Series Six (Part 3/3)

This next one might just be my favorite of the entire bunch. It's called Beyond The Sea.

The Premise

Stanfield and Ross are two astronauts who live on a space station. They are able to visit their families by means of a technology that can transport their consciousness to avatars (called "Replicas") on Earth. Tragedy strikes as the family of one astronaut is murdered...

The Characters

Aaron Paul delivers a surprisingly nuanced performance as Cliff Stanfield, a taciturn and emotionally distant husband and father. My only experience with Paul on-screen is as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad. This is Aaron Paul's second time in Black Mirror, having had a cameo voice-over in the episode USS Callister. Here, he has a dual role, sometimes acting as Cliff, and sometimes acting as David.

Former teen heartthrob Josh Hartnett takes on the role of the charming family man David Ross, Stanfield's colleague. And let me just say that Hartnett is severely underrated as an actor. From his early roles in 40 Days and 40 Nights and Pearl Harbor, I had him pegged as the Pretty Boy. But recently I saw him in Trap. And now this. Hartnett had me liking Ross, feeling sad for Ross, disliking Ross, hating Ross, and finally being utterly fucking terrified of Ross.

Kate Mara as Lana Stanfield, Cliff Stanfield's wife. I've only ever seen Kate Mara in House of Cards and the ill-fated Fantastic Four. At first, the role felt like one anyone could have done, but after Lisa Stanfield reveals the fact that her loyalty to her husband runs far deeper than the audience was led to believe, Kate Mara utterly sold me on her performance. Marvellous stuff.

Auden Thornton as Jessica Ross. This is really a thankless role. Thornton gets groped by Hartnett and then has to look tearful and terrified in another scene, and that's it for her.

Daniel Bell as Cliff's son Henry Stanfield. He's a meek, quiet kid with almost zero personality. The audience is led to believe that Cliff oppressed it out of him, but there are times we do see Cliff doing dad-stuff with his son, so I'm not really sure what they were going for here.

Rory Culkin has a small but memorable role as Kappa. All glowery menace and unhinged dialog.

Marama Corlett, Siân Davis and Ioachim Ciobanu as Theta, Sigma, Epsilon. I'm not sure I can tell them apart, really. They're just there as Kappa's insane sidekicks.

The Mood

It's a serene futuristic setup when in space, but when back on Earth, it's retro-style picket fences. That's because for some reason, this episode takes place in a reimagined past. This episode is long and takes a while to get to the meat of the story from the setup, so for the most part, it's quiet, somewhat sad in places, and interspersed with scenes of horrific violence.

What I liked

The beginning parts where they threw little hints that David and Cliff were... unusual. From the fans at the cinema theater to Cliff saying Grace but not actually eating with his family.

The shot of the spaceship is pretty neat, gotta say.

And also the design of their sleeping quarters.

Whatever it was I was expecting when they cut Ross open... it wasn't this. Honestly, I was expecting a metal skeleton of some kind. Not this... gel?! Mind blown. Points for originality!

That twist at the end... oof. I really thought Ross was going to murder Stanfield or something, but no, I was totally blindsided. In fact, the entire episode subverted my expectations again and again.

The characters and the dialogue are pretty well-done. It wasn't just the work of the actors that made these characters shine; it was the way they were -written-. Cliff and David weren't just good or bad guys, they were relatable, flawed men who loved sincerely and deeply. As they went back-and-forth, my sympathies shifted from David, to Cliff, then to David again. I know none of the characters actually deserved what they eventually got, but at some points they let the worst parts of themselves come through, with tragic results.

Also some of the details were pretty nice. Like when Cliff searches David's quarters and we see all the stuff his kids left for him.

What I didn't

You'd think that with these high stakes, the company would send more than the mimimum headcount out in space. It makes no kind of sense. Two people leaves very little wriggle room for accidents, mishaps and the like. This is an extended trip in space, not a buddy cop patrol beat. What's worse, the two-man thing was actually a major plot point, which drive many of the characters' decisions. Too bad it didn't make sense in the first place.

This episode went on a little long, but it's a minor quibble and one I'm inclined to forgive, all things considered.

Conclusion

Possibly the strongest episode so far, despite its flaws. That twist hit like a gut punch. The story played me like a fiddle from start to finish. And that ending was really the fucked-up finish to end all fucked-up finishes.

My Rating

9 / 10

Thoughts on Black Mirror Series Six so far

As with previous seasons, this one has been a mixed bag. Mostly positive, though. Even the one episode, Loch Henry, that I didn't like that much, was pretty good. And I didn't dislike it, just didn't think it belonged in Black Mirror. But honestly, these first three episodes are a huge improvement over Series Five.

So far, Series Six isn't Awful!
T___T

Do techies lean Liberal or Conservative? (Part 2/2)

Welcome back!

As promised, we will be diving into the three points I outlined previously, and we'll examine how these positions could actually be Conservative ones rather than Liberal.

How Software Developers are Conservative

Identity does not matter. This principle applies both ways. The same way we wouldn't discriminate on basis of race or gender or what-have-you, we also would not use it as a criteria of preference. You may claim this is contradictory, and you'd be wrong. This is entirely consistent with our worldview. Only the tech matters.

This isn't important, or
even relevant.

Now, sure, I know Silicon Valley has DEI programs in place. I promise you, those are most assuredly implemented by HR, or Management who want to appease some Liberal demographic. The average techie, however, simply does not give a flying fuck.

You ask any techie, and their first question is more likely to be "what's your tech stack?" rather than "what are your pronouns?"

Innovation versus tradition. Now, earlier when I said that techies prefer innovation over tradition, that was true. It may also have given you the impression that techies are risk-taking swashbucklers, which, to be honest, makes us sound more awesome than we probably deserve.

The truth is, techies are boring and consistent to a fault. We like things to be neat and make sense. If we did things a certain way, in the past, we are likely to do so again unless there are good reasons against it. We obey coding styles and naming conventions and follow software patterns because doing so makes it easy to troubleshoot when things go wrong.

Things are done a certain
way, for good reason.

One of our greatest frustrations is when people do things willy-nilly and just "wing it" because this is messy and asking for trouble down the road. We don't do things one way because we suddenly feel like doing so - we do them a certain way because it's worked for us in the past, but we are open to changing it if there's good reason to do so. Again, this is consistent with the previous, seemingly Liberal, position.

The collective versus the individual. This next point is more true now than it was when I first started out.

Developers accomplish things in teams. Software development is a team sport. There is really no way around it in this day and age. Tech has evolved so much that there is zero chance of one person knowing everything - now this knowledge requires a team.

Functioning as a unit.

Remember I said that developers are a diverse lot? It is precisely this diversity that lends itself to building effective multi-disciplinary teams. And in this way, it is often the collective that trumps the individual.

Some parting thoughts on the Culture Wars

Even similar positions can take on a Liberal or Conservative lens depending on how one views it. This shows me that both sides actually have a lot in common, Culture Wars be damned. And this perspective today is perhaps more relevant than ever now that the Culture Wars have arrived at what I can only describe as a very odd place.

Americans on Social Media now squabble over the dumbest shit imaginable. Recently, I had the pleasure of watching Superman, and went on Facebook to check out some reviews and see how other moviegoers found the film. Imagine my surprise when I found people embroiled in intense arguments over whether Superman was an illegal immigrant. I suppose technically, he is, but don't these nerds have better things to talk about?

Apparently not! I soon came to the realization that this was bigger than I initially thought. It had stemmed from the director and producer, James Gunn, making a remark about how Superman was an immigrant. The Liberals began drawing parallels to recent treatment of immigrants in the USA. And then people were in each other's faces about how they didn't understand Superman and weren't real Superman fans if they preferred/didn't prefer this Superman.

I mean, attempting to gatekeep who is and isn't a fan of a fictional superhero character? Tell me you're a loser without telling me you're a loser.

I'd initially thought this argument was basically a bunch of loser nerds obsessing over obscure details. It turned out to be way more ridiculous than that - it was a mob of wankers on the internet all trying desperately to justify feeling morally superior to the other side. Conservatives such as Ben Shapiro started trashing Superman as "woke garbage" and bitching in bizarre fashion about how the character wasn't American enough. One Susan Sarandon went onto Instagram to make it all about Israel and Palestine.

True, being good and kind does not require athleticism or talent. Any idiot is capable of kindness, and I would have it no other way. On the other hand, it just feels like a whole bunch of untalented schmucks just decided to overcompensate for their lack of talent and real-world achievement by blowing their trumpets about "kindness and empathy" just so they could feel accomplished, or something.

And as for people like Shapiro and Sarandon... massive cringe, man. People need to understand when they've taken things far enough and it's getting absurd. It's come to a point where people can't sit down and watch a decent superhero movie without trying to score political points. 

Dysfunction, thy name is America.

Your cultured programmer,
T___T