being a human+

When I go, I want my epitaph to have just four words: "Here lies a man."
-- From an old man interviewed in The Straits Times Saturday Special Report 18/09/2010

Wah nice I like. Maybe I should do this too.

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This semester I am learning alot about relations between data and relations between objects: Relational model, Entity-relationship model and Unified Modeling Language. And also alot about interactions in operating systems: processes, threads, interprocess communication and scheduling.

I find it amusing I am learning all these when I don't think I know much about relations and interactions between humans.

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You know that in computer science, there is this data structure known as the binary heap? Important elements percolate up to the top, unimportant elements percolate down to the bottom. It is useful, because the element with the highest priority will always get retrieved first, in constant time.

From what I see, humans like to employ binary heaps too when it comes to relations with others. When people are lonely and want to find someone to talk to, there will always be some with higher priorities to whom they will talk to first. Those with lower priorities, unfortunately, typically don't get talked to first, since they are way down in their binary heaps, even though they are available too.

Only when those with higher priorities are not available, will these with lower priorities start percolating up to the top, and retrieved to get talked to.

Well as it turns out, I'm not that blind.