Seduction in the workplace: how to get ahead at work

How to get ahead at work without resorting to giving heads. This came up in my conversations with a friend and then a recent surge of blog entries on how to get a raise at work, how to get promoted, etc. I've "worked" at white-collar jobs all my life so you might need to adapt this to your work situation.

The reality is that almost any work environment is rife with internal politics, struggles for dominance, and basically, the battlefield for modern tribal (office) warfare. Setting aside the issue that our performance is rarely if ever get evaluated objectively. When people interact, their reality is shaped subjectively by their perceptions. So expecting our boss to evaluate us objectively, just because so-and-so is getting paid at such a rate, and since we are doing the same work if not more, we should get compensated at the same rate is a silly, pointless, and definitely ineffective argument with our boss. That's the number one mistake that people make. They expect objective measurement of their work and get rewards based on merits, just as if they were in school even though workplaces are nothing like schools!

Some might suggest that we should take the initiative to start projects, go the distance, and do more than what your boss asked for or expected us to. That's a great idea, until you encounter a superior who thrives on criticizing and belittling their subordinates; you know the type, the kiss-up and kick-down middle managers. Rather than crying fouls and giving in, the trick to deal with them is simple, make them feel important and give them the illusion of power without giving up our own. Sure, we can start a new project. Rather than telling them about it and expecting them to praise us, we get them involved by giving them small tasks to gain compliance, then slowly turn them into our subordinates.

Most middle managers want to be involved into everything, because they don't want to be left out and they usually become managers because they thrive on controlling people. We have to start with the basic premise that if we are to get a raise and/or a promotion, we have to do more than what they asked of us, but instead of just showing them our results, we give them menial tasks that are of no consequence, however, we sell them on the idea that they too are making a difference. This way, I have effectively bypassed their managerial duties of approving or rejecting what I do because I presume what I do is important and critical to our overall success. Two, I don't appear needy in seeking their praise. Three, they feel important because they are involved and not feel left out. Finally, we slowly and gradually make them dependent on what we do and turn power dynamics in our favor.

That, my friends, is how to get ahead at work. We do more than what they ask, we don't turn around and expect immediate rewards for our efforts, rather than waiting for approval, we get everyone else involved, including our boss. Of course, there are details on what kind of projects, when to start them, how to present them, and market them to a greater community.

I was ok until you started talking to me...

Once in a long while, I overhear this sort of gems at a public gathering. I find them amusing... guys, with their new found bravery of talking to girls, are now turning into jerks, and worst yet, they think they are soooooo important and significant in someone's life that they get all disappointed when they get that inevitable rejection.

In most social interactions, from meeting new people, to applying to a school, a program, or a new job, they are mostly a numbers game. There are ways we can stack the odds to work for us, but most important of all, we have to be secure in ourselves not to "put all eggs in one basket" so that we are not totally dependent on one event, one person, one job, one school, one program, or one ticket, when we should be focusing on making the best of out of one's life.

When we have enough friends in our lives, losing one or a few doesn't matter that much. Same ideas apply when we are looking for a new career, selecting a new candidate, or even as simple as buying lottery tickets. There is an element of chance in most actions that we take. Looking at this another way, which I prefer because it's, once again, amusing to me, is that if we throw enough shit on the wall, some will stick.

This whole concept of playing odds seems intuitive to me, but I guess for some people, when they are so caught up in the moment, they lose sight of the bigger picture, of whether they have truly explored all options and stacked the deck in their favor. Another is that people would be much happier if they look at how absurd life is and instead of becoming all glum, they should rejoice and enjoy what's left of their lives.

There's no need for Foundations, Transformations, and even The Blueprint. There's no need for Revelation, Awakening, or mind meld / transplant! We simply have to believe in ourselves, in what we do, and find friends we can rely on. If we want to meet girls, keep talking to more girls. If we are thinking of finding a new job, send out feelers, network with people in careers we are interested in, talk to people, and start applying to as many jobs as possible through our contacts. The technique isn't as important as simply increasing our odds.

How do we control ourselves?

Many people want to have control over their lives. They talk about it, ruminate over what they can do, enroll in courses, etc. What they don't realize is that the first step of taking control of one's life is by not relinquishing control in the first place.

I realize this goes against the conventional wisdom, especially among the religious faithfuls who often appeal to a higher power for guidance and assistance. There's a difference between accepting what one can control and not control vs. surrendering, and then thinking that there's a superior being that has power or knows the one true & right way to do something. Instead of constantly in search of the correct answer, people would be much happier if they just accept things for what they are, and start working forward.

There are times and places when we must seek help, because there are people who are more knowledgeable and more skilled in assisting us. But in most mundane day-to-day living, we are much better off if we don't have to feel like that we are walking on egg shells, because we are constantly second guessing ourselves, whether we are taking the correct course of actions or not. What irks me is that most silly coaches, from dating to life, they are just as ignorant as the general population. When information is so readily accessible, we might as well try different ways until we are happy with the solution. So many of us are raised with the expectation of being perfect, when life is more about learning from one's mistakes.

The trick is to learn from mistakes and what is our own tolerance to mistakes and flaws. I see so many who are learning to fail by failing to learn. They obsess over the immediate problems instead of focusing on the end result. They are constantly in search of that one true course that would lead them to salvation. This can range from following a guru, a school of thoughts, a set of beliefs, to a religion. I find life is more of a random walk, and as I get older, I discover what way points to look for on the way to my final destination.

Another fallacy with trying to maintain control is to constantly look for answers, life and people are far more interesting if we ask questions. The die-hard believers often dismiss those who ask questions and consequently, the same dogmatic followers never discover anything for themselves and they will never grow to reach their full potential. There are no specific set of prescription to have a happy and fulfilled life. We all have to be on our own to discover who we are and what makes us happy. Rather than setting and charting a course for ourselves and others, or to look to someone for guidance, we should feel the freedom to explore, to fail, to make mistakes, to learn from them, to give up control of others, and to follow our own desires.

Exploiting Excel

There are a few side projects I do just to keep my card-carrying credential as a nerd. Two Excel functions I discovered that has changed the way I use Excel. This is all about managing data under specific conditions.

Most people probably know how to SUM() a block of cells, but what if I only want to SUM certain cells within that block when those cells meet a certain condition, go check out SUMIF() function.

Along the line of conditional sum, what if we want to change the location and size of the block of cells without going back to modify our existing SUM function? For example, there's a list of charges to my bank account, normally, my monthly statement lists all transactions and total sum of what happened within that period. What if I want to sum transactions across an arbitrary set of dates, for example, only the 2nd week of the month? This is where OFFSET can be used in conjunction with SUMIF. OFFSET function allows me to determine the origin of the offset, how much to offset to (i.e. where to start) and the size of the offset (i.e. where to stop). So instead of setting a fix block / range of cells within SUM, use the OFFSET within the SUM function.

SUMIF and OFFSET provide the freedom beyond the normal SUM function or any function that takes in a block or range of cells. SUMIF allows for conditional sum, and OFFSET gives me the flexibility of the location and size of the block of cells for manipulation within Excel.

Valuing diversity

If you are reading this blog, you probably have wondered, why is this lunatic so negative? How does this fool even get up in the morning? How on earth does he manage to get anything done? Why is he so critical? Why can't he be more positive? Why doesn't he praise me more and tell me that I'm a good person and I'm worthy to be alive?! All because I am very special and unique, just like the rest of the 6 billion people on Earth!

Well, I'm not your mommy who coddled you. I don't want to be the daddy you wish you had. I sincerely believe that we have the possibility of doing anything and achieving whatever goals we set for ourselves. All I am pointing out is the realistic probability of accomplishing them. According to the laws of quantum mechanic and what we know of elementary particles, it's possible that we can walk through walls, but the probability of aligning particles just right for one particular person to walk through any one wall is infinitesimally small. Yet, dreamers continue to fantasize. There will always be another get-rich-quick scheme right around the corner. You can get your student loans paid off without having an income. There will be another Nigerian prince who needs to use your bank account to transfer money out of his country. In a few more months, someone will come up with yet another fool-proof method of getting girls. I would be very selfish if I don't tell you about my plan to have a massive passive income from blogging so that I can retire from my real job. And there will be a cure for cancer too!

There are couple of culprits for fueling this delusional thinking in people. The main cause being the feel-good self-esteem building humanist movement that started in the 1970's. This problem is especially prevalent among American kids who grew up in single-mother households; they are brought up to think they are kings and queens of the world without their fathers to rein in their childhood fantasies. Most of them think that they can be anything they want, all because their mothers told them so, but almost everyone of these kids is expecting constant praise to get anything done! So the end result is that we now have grown ups with the Peter Pan syndrome failing to live up their dreams and of course, they blame everyone else for their problems except themselves.

Well, life is tough and it's about time that someone comes along to smack some sense into this whole bullshit self-improvement I-can-be-anything movement. Truth is, I think this movement is a joke and I'm not the only person to see the whole absurdity of it all. This reminds me of a dear Jewish friend of mine who explained to me. According to him, had all Jews been positive and optimistic during World War II, while Hitler and his minions were gassing his people, none would have escaped and continued what's left of their culture. That, my dear readers, is why in difficult times, the genes of people who examine life realistically, critically, and to many, negatively, persist and thrive. In periods of prosperity, the delusional optimists will triumph without any doubt. But when shit hits the fan, just like when this whole housing bubble popped and the hedge funds collapsed, who will come clean up the mess?!

Instead of waiting for disasters, we might as well prepare for them. Better yet, we should call out those hustlers. When something is too good to be true, it probably is. Nearly one year ago, I got into a huge flame war on a forum for calling out two hustlers who claimed to have game; I waited until they started to rip people off. A few months later, another group of hustlers tried. Not even half a year later, another hustler emerged and yet another recently. So instead of asking people to pay for his dinners, or pay him half-price for his expert dating advice, he was asking for people to give him money in unmarked envelope and the latest one, give him gift cards! Wait until the IRS get wind of their "income." At what point do people see these internet forums for being the cesspools of losers and hustlers?!

Putting these entertaining anecdotes aside, the world is a big place and there are many types of people with differing opinions. I'm sure some of those optimists have done some good things and a few have achieved beyond their wildest dreams. But those are miracles, and miracles are exceptions. Just as there are some comatose patients who wake up after decades-long comas, what we don't ever get to see are the tens of thousands who died of bed sores. Just as in almost every lottery drawing, we will get to watch the jubilation of one or a few winners, but we will never find out the millions more who lost. So instead of paying to win that lottery drawing or waiting to wake up from that coma, we can follow many well-known well-trodden traditional paths to success. Better yet, if someone thinks s/he is so special and unique, s/he should go discover his/her very own path to success instead of paying some hustler to learn to do it. Be creative and be original!

Originality & creativity

Most IQ tests measure how many factoids someone knows or at best, some reasoning skills, such as manipulating 3D objects, solving an abstract puzzle, etc. and then, normalizing those results with the overall general population. IQ tests measure skills that serve some useful purposes in life, and many of them are essential for doing well in schools. IQ tests don't really test for the comprehensive intelligence that we all imagine, but rather, they provide some predictive values in how well someone would do in schools.

I, personally, value people who have mastery over facts AND also have the ability to use those facts to apply, to reason, and to create something new. In almost every field I have stumbled into, people tend to just regurgitate the same old bullshit. One, they don't see how to apply the bullshit. Two, they don't even test if that long held dogma is true. Three, assuming that dogma is true, how else and where else can we apply that and just perhaps, expand it. Finally, using our existing knowledge, what can we come up with that's new, it might be evolutionary (similar to previous point) or revolutionary.

This seems to occur mostly in groups of ignorant egotistical people. Someone first dishes out some bullshit, everyone else chimes in and conflates it with other irrelevant bullshit; thus, muddying the issue and making it more difficult for everyone else to understand. An intelligent person with a good grasp of the knowledge base tends to simplify all that is complex and difficult to understand into a clear and concise concept.

I see knowledge workers are no different than professional athletes. Most toil in silence and obscurity and 99% of them never succeed. Of the few that made it out, had their breakthroughs, I am willing to bet that they have created something new. They have mastered not only the existing corpus of knowledge but also have made insights that resolve difficulties that confounded the rest of the 99% of people who attempted.

The positive humanist in me would like to think that we all are creative and can contribute our original thoughts in one form or another. But the realist in me, that is tempered by experience, has learned to accept that most people are like rats in a cage, they keep spinning the wheel and rarely make anything of themselves, despite what they want, wish, claim, declare, and resolve to achieve. It's easy to blame that they are lazy, afraid to try because of fear of failure or success. But the sad truth is that they all lack that something to distinguish themselves among their peers: intelligence for creativity & originality.

Instead of keep fighting, keep beating one's head against the wall, I think people would be much happier if they just accept the world for what it is. They do their best to live within their means and limitations. Not everyone is meant to grow up to dunk that basketball, be that pro-surfer, make millions using his/her blog, have 3somes with midgets, even engage in anal sex, or manage multiple relationships that so many talk about but haven't a clue what that entails. If people would just be who they are, then they will achieve that inner peace, that mindful awakening to who they are and what they are capable of, that's when creativity will come about and hopefully, something original. But probably not!

Productivity

Laziness is a great virtue and I try my best to work as little as possible. Take the mouse for example, I think it's one of many productivity killers, and touchpad isn't far behind. Why? Because for a touch typist like myself, I have to lift my hand, grasp around for the mouse, move the pointer to the desired location, and then move back to my keyboard. The more efficient way is to keep my dominant/mouse hand on the keyboard and trackpoint is the most efficient way of moving the pointer around. My recent compromise on desktop computers is to use my trackball, then I know exactly where my pointer moving widget is without looking for it; the additional benefit is that a trackball doesn't take up the same amount of space as a mouse with its mousepad.

Along the same line, I use gmail and greasemonkey together, and I found gmail macros; it lets me navigate and perform various tasks inside gmail without using my mouse. I was just complaining to a friend of mine today after gmail upgraded to the new version.

It's just sooooo hard, you know, I want to quit my "miserable" job and do my 4-hour work week, be a dating coach every other weekend. Can someone make me dinner? Don't forget to pick up my dry cleaning too! While you are at it, bring a few girls home... so, you know, I don't have to go out and talk to girls. Living is so difficult! HA!

From geeks to gamers

The community is comprised predominately of guys from the computer industry. I have never worked in it so I wouldn't know. In my line of work, we deal with people all day long and our success is determined mostly by our social skills and in rare instances, technical knowledge. What began as a discussion at work on why most guys will "hit it" with almost any girl, we ended up talking on being normal, which reminded me of what I wrote awhile back. I see becoming a “pickup artist” as a two-step process for many guys: 1. normal, fun and social 2. pickup artist.

Most guys starting in the community tend to be shy, introverted, perhaps even geeky individuals who didn’t undergo the usual socialization process. Before they can start “gaming” girls, I believe they have to learn to be normal first. By normal, they have to be able to to relate to people (gender independent), chill, relax, and have fun.

A good test whether someone is a normal and social person is: If this person were to be introduced to a group of (non-community) friends in a social setting, would this person able to befriend those people and he is just so cool that they want include him into their social circle?!

Some normal turned community guys I know are afraid of introducing community guys to their normal friends because guys who study to become pickup artists but didn’t go through the stage of being normal & social tend to be a bit off, and tend to weird out normal people. If someone can’t relate to people on a friendly term without gaming them; by that, I mean this person can only talk about the game, or whatever geeky esoteric topics not that many people care about, he is doing this ALL WRONG!

Many guys I’ve met from the community can’t walk up and chill out/befriend with normal guys hanging out at bars. Instead, they would read and try to apply AMOG tactics, when in reality, the best way to steal a girl from anyone or group is to be the guy who brings value, who is more fun, and who is more socially savvy than the rest of the group. If someone can’t do that, my suggestion to this person is to step back, stop gaming, and learn to be normal, learn to have fun, tell a few dirty jokes, and god forbid, even be AFC so that one can relate to normal people.

I notice many community guys are very intelligent yet quite shy. In actuality, they have this sense of arrogance, as though they are above commoners. Despite what community guys think of lay people, the latter are probably getting more lays than those in the community. I recognize that where I work and what we do, we are in our ivory towers. This attitude of superiority, in fact, is what prevents many of us from relating to people. Just chill, life is more than just a race of intellect and one-up-man-ship.

The whole idea of gaming is about being normal, fun, and social. This means being able to strike up a conversation with a stranger anywhere, making small talks about mundane, boring subjects and can connect with people in general.

Go read a book, learn something new (not just openers and routines), be interested and interesting. If someone doesn’t have a life outside of gaming, he can’t game. Be a normally engaging guy first, that people enjoy his company. Be comfortable in one's own skin.

This is a 2-step process if someone is not already socially savvy, FIRST learn to be normal & social, THEN learn to game girls. This is supposed to be fun, not work. I'm not one of those PU workshop instructors, I think the minute I turn this into a money making venture, I would have a difficult time keep going out to have fun being social. Then my goal isn't to enjoy the company of others, and my actions would be to hustle other guys so that I can maximize profit, thus I would have to seduce men instead of women; yes, that would be very gay!

LG: Life is good

Being an academic provides a great deal of freedom. Part of that is to use my time and to contribute back to the body of literature, not just in terms of publishing my work, my results, my ideas, and my discoveries, I also help review papers, grants, and referee conflicting works. I don't mind that as my fellow colleagues are obligated to do the same for me. The fun part is that we get to b.s., to do some chest pounding, and quite often, to whip out our dicks to compare. Sometimes, we have to do the proverbial circle jerk; or as I euphemistically call those meetings, mutual mental masturbation session, M3 for short.

One skill I developed from my work is I'm very well versed in giving backhanded compliments. I don't really have a choice but to be smart when I'm surrounded/hounded by people whose IQ's are 140+. Or in PU lingo, push-pulls. In fact, when I was growing up, I was often chastised for doing it naturally. Who would have thunk this stuff is becoming so useful when I grow up, especially in PU?!

The 3 pillars that support a happy satisfied life, which Mystery talks about (yeah, do you think I actually read real books?!) in VAH, defintely hold true for me. Health, wealth, and relationships. I was battling the flu from hell, uh, China, which isn't that far off from hell for most people there. I had absolutely no motivation to go to work or to hang out with friends. Before that, the work situation was a bit tenuous. Now that both of those pillars are finally stabilized, I have so much more fun going out and meeting new people.

Thank goodness I don't just talk to guys or observe girls from afar, I think girls have a term for that, creepy stalkerish behavior. It is true that happiness comes from within, or in PU lingo, all games are inner game. That's not the end though; ultimately, it's the in HER game. Allow me to return back to China, I'm sure those Tibetan monks (don't write to me about Tibetan independence, Richard Gere, and I won't talk about that hamster incidence) have plenty of inner game. Yet, they are celibate. So having inner game is great, but in-her game is even better. Trust me, I'm a doctor.

P.S. Seriously, stop with the phone calls, text messages, emails,... I already made my official statement and I stand by it.

Baby don't hurt me...

Leaving ethical and philosophical argument aside, for the greater good of the body/person, each cell within us is capable of committing suicide. There's an elaborate system of cellular machinery within each and every cell that will quietly kill the cell, if sensors of that cell-death machinery are triggered. The rationalization is that if something bad happens to or within that cell, it would rather die than to mutate or act in ways that would hurt the rest of the body.

Failure of such system can be one potential cause of cancer. For example, DNA modified by radiation that mutated the gene to either nonfunctional form (in the case of an anti-tumorigenic gene) or to an overactive form (gain of function in a proto-oncogene), that cell undergoing multiple mutations will lead to a "cancerous" state. Usually, self-check or by immune cell surveillance would detect this change and the cell is either self-induced to die (by apoptosis) or to be killed by immune cells. This way, the irradiation damage is limited, contained within that one dead cell and not be spread, or to affect other nearby cells.

In fact, most cells in the body are "programmed" to die by default without the proper growth factors and other environmental factors. This self-induced death is quiet in the sense that nearby cells or local immune cells will clear the debris without causing inflammation; i.e., the death is quiet but not silent. The same molecular machinery within cells that are used to die, as it turns out, I discover that they can be used for functions other than cell death. There's a growing corpus of literature that shows these cell death enzymes are used for both physiologic and pathologic functions without leading to cell death.

The importance of this discovery can be categorized at multiple levels. At the epistemological level, there is a distinct connection between form and function. Cell lives and dies by changing its form. At the scientific level, this provides a novel insight into mechanisms of cellular differentation, fusion, fission, chemotaxis, apoptosis, proliferation and growth. At the medical level, we can deduce how the body regulates both normal (physiologic) and in response to disease/injury/harm (pathologic) activities using the same set of enzymes. This would provide a list of candidate targets for drug development.

A new man in 2 years

Today was quite momentous... I officially start my next 24 months in Seattle. Although I can't talk much about it, I finally did something I should have done many years ago but just didn't have the balls until now. Today, I set it in motion. I am almost relieved.

Career-wise, I have decided to put it on hold, at least not at a trajectory I envisioned previously. There are quite a few things I need to do for myself. Afterall, I am here to live my life, and no one else's. I feel good to be at peace with making these tough decisions, which should have been done last summer if not the year before that. Being in a cozy relationship has a tendency to insulate and isolate myself from the rest of the world; now I have been on my own for awhile, I finally feel liberated. The funny thing is that, this morning, I woke up and showered with the same girl I was in that relationship a few years ago. How much has changed and yet, paradoxically, how little has changed!

Tomorrow morning, I will present the 2nd talk of a series of seminars, as sort of a multi-part swan song. I'll probably blog about my research work in the future. For now, I feel almost accomplished, and definitely a well-deserved soon-to-be-minted PhD. The end is near, yet it's also the beginning of a new person, not in terms of degree, diploma, certification, license, etc. In my core, I have changed quite a bit and when she plucked out those gray hairs this morning, I also noticed a dramatic change in my physical appearance.

As the announcer at MGM (Las Vegas) repeated about those caged lions, "It's good to be king!"

Dumb idiots

Whether we like to accept or not, everyone is a racist, discriminatory, and as much as we would like to deny, we all prejudge each other to some extent. What Don Imus did was wrong, but he was fired for the wrong reason. I doubt that the CBS executives actually let him go because of what he said, but to use what he did to cover up the real reason, Imus is old and not bringing in the revenue like he used to do.

After the political correctness movement of the 90's, most of these idiots did not get smarter, but they simply don't verbalize the same idiotic thoughts going through their heads. Al Sharpton and his ilks managed to silent those idiots, keeping them dumb doesn't mean they are not acting out their same racist, prejudiced, and discriminatory thoughts. Shutting them up and making them clean up their language have not and will never stop them from acting out their thoughts and beliefs.

There are countless number of reasons why people do not like each other. As long as we can separate and categorize people into groups, people will inevitably find an excuse to be fearful, leading to envy and/or hate,... of different groups.

The solution isn't to shut them up; if we want to slowly correct this problem, I would encourage idiots to verbalize their thoughts, then I can expose them for who they truly are. What's interesting is that many of these idiots, in actuality, recognize their own inadequacies and stupidity, which they would normally blame on others. So they tend to keep their mouths shut now, not out of fear of offending others, but be afraid that they will be exposed for their insecurities. I make it a point to bait them, tell racist jokes, antagonize them, keep tempting them, eventually they will show their true color.

Cunts’n'Cocks: Leaks in the firewall

How much effort do we spend in partitioning our lives into separate compartments? Especially when one overflows or leaks into another, how much can we do to remedy that situation? Or in other words, how many balls can we juggle before one or more will fall through?

I told my bro that my ex-gf basically managed most of the transactions in getting my new house, this is on top of managing her full time job (and employees), her houses, her tenants, and her business. He was surprised how someone can take on so many roles and do them all at the same time. Then shortly after, she called me and expressed how she is stressing out. I can feel the weight of responsibilities falling on her shoulders and that’s tough for a single girl who is about to join the Christmas Cake Club.

Soon after that, I got a call from a girl I dated awhile back. I am doing the ethical thing to help as I have no one to answer to except myself. The most difficult thing is to be honest with myself, and after that, being honest toward others is a cakewalk. In any case, I hope her situation improves as life is as unfair as it is and despite we have walked our separate ways, I still do what I can professionally to make her situation tolerable. Everyone will experience it at some point in their life, hopefully later than sooner.

Being the selfish prick that I am, I thought about myself and how I deal with my stressors and the multiple roles I have to play. After a long discussion with a friend about some other issues, I realized how high and thick of firewalls I have built to partition my life into neat little compartments. In some weird psychological drama, I seemed to have created schizms in my persona that may be impeding my progress.

The question becomes, should I let my guard down, let a few balls dropped, and allow some mixing of different parts of my life? A friend once told me that I blocked out much of the pain and suffering I’ve experienced, which allowed me to keep going, fully functional in my professional capacity. However, in my personal life, I seem to come across as an empty shell, without the drama and emotional turmoils that give people character.

More than meets the eye

Complexity in life lies in the juxtaposition of simple blocks. Back when DNA was discovered, and finally identified to be contain only 4 bases, i.e. alphabet, we struggled to figure out how that could encode for the magic of life. Then we discovered that every 3 bases code for 1 amino acid, one word, and there are only 20 different atomic units of proteins. A string of many amino acids together make up a functional protein, as in a sentence, the basis of many biological machines. By the simple mapping of arrangement of DNA, we can translate to sequences of amino acids, and finally identifying proteins, thus, the sentences that describe life.

Through the hardwork of many, we discovered that there are domains within proteins, as in phrases of our sentences. Of course, there were also multiple level of controls of how DNA is organized, transcription of DNA into RNA, processing, storage, and translation of RNA into proteins. Proteins themselves are further post-translationally modified, delivered, assembled with other proteins to form complexes, as in paragraphs. (I’m trying to see how far I can carry the analogy of life and linguistic before that breaks down).

Within the past decade, a whole new world of genetics developed, based on the discovery of “non-coding” RNA. What we thought was junk DNA, that was not coding for meaning for RNA and consequently, proteins, turns out to encode for meaningful control sequences to determine whether coding RNAs become proteins. I will go more in-depth in the future.

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. — JFK

We probably heard/read different variations of that same quote by JFK. I submit my own: The winner has a thousand proud parents, and all losers are just lonely orphans. When I read reports (for both work & fun), I’m rather skeptical because everyone is craving to be that winner, who wants to be a lonely orphan? Almost everyone is guilty of only publishing their best results (at best), however, many are also guilty of falsifying their works in general.

Here I am, working, doing my usual readings and in my mailbox is a confidential email about our colleague whose dissertation work has been discovered (by journalists and experts will verify) to be false, and not only that, she also published the same “result” for multiple works by simple manipulations of images. I’m sure there are many people out there falsifying their works, but at least be smart enough to make multiple falsifications instead of repeating the same fake data! Are they that stupid and/or lazy?!This brings me to a recent discussion with a dear friend. We have been re-reading some FR’s by a self-proclaimed “Jedi knight” of PUA. The conversation flow in his FR is simply poetic. We all have talked with our share of women; yes, we are a bit awkward, and I’m sure we are not that smooth, even then, we have never encountered girls so compliant or eager. Of course, these same FR/LR’s are posted in multiple seduction boards (no, they were not peer-reviewed), and they also serve as advertisements.

If they are fake, how can we tell? Other than by our intuition, and thus, what about the false hopes they give to their readers? When these “reports” are just fantasies of someone trying to seduce these needy, socially inept, awkward dudes into giving up their hard-earned cash. A few of us have started our new seduction forum, we still haven’t formulate and agree on policies for dealing with people posting ads, and even more importantly, how do we review reports? Do we allow only reports of failures? Should we focus our attention on dissecting only reports of successes? At the very least, how do we flag reports to warn ea other? You are welcome to post your suggestions here in comments or in General Discussion.