visakanv

Cebu [2015]

I went to Cebu in March 2015. It was a pleasant experience. Hung out in Ayala Mall. Bought some books. Ate Lechon. It was real

Annual Checkups

Jan 1 2010: Inflated sense of self-worth Nov 18 2010: Resolutions for 2011 Jan 1 2011: Mandatory New Year Post July 5 2011: W

todo

(feb2015 draft of a page from @1000wordvomits) I think one of the things that keeps me procrastinating is the fact that I have

ev williams, xoxo 2013

A journey on the information superhighway – evan williams Hello friends. I want to talk to you today about the Internet, jus

Most of my thoughts about education, school, university, learning.

When you’re still in the early stages of your formal education, you have a pretty good idea about what the next year will br

Tweets from 2010

run was totally worth it. body is a furnace. ear drums are pounding. fresh night air tastes so good. cut 2 minutes off my 3.6k

My Answers To Mark Manson’s Life Purpose Questions

http://markmanson.net/life-purpose 1: What is your favorite flavor of shit sandwich and does it come with an olive? (What pain

Why I Am A Marketer

This is a quick and dirty draft I wrote while at work. There’s this Italian guy on TED- Ernesto Sirolli who said there are t

Why should we blog?

It’s always been self-evident to me, but let me try to spell it out. A blog is the intersection of conversations and boo

Your frustration is valid, but your response isn’t helping you.

Visakan Veerasamy’s answer to: If you could write a 10 note to your younger self, what would you say? Your frustration i

The Tao of YungSnuggie

I loved YungSnuggie so much that I pulled out his best answers, formatted them a little (tried to make it easier to read witho

words that are pretty and useful

puerile magnate marquis credo quasar savant vehement ostensible irrevocable celestial sobriqueted veritable pervasive eviscera

A year of content marketing.

I started work at ReferralCandy in February 2013. It’s easily been the most interesting, exciting and challenging year o

Summary of entire blog, part 4 (2012)

Continuing where I left off in Part 3… Personal Development: How to live, and other final 2011 thoughts. Worried about m

summary of entire blog part 3

In part 2 (over a year ago!), I summarized my blog up to the middle of 2011. Let’s continue. Singapore: The danger of

seth godin

CHOOSING COLOR: People desperately want to believe stories. Even if that story is just a few drops of ink on a plastic sheet.

Notes from Seth Godin’s talk at Google

I was watching a talk that Seth Godin gave at Google in 2007. It was uploaded on jul 16, about 3 weeks after the first generat

notes from Anthony Robbins TED talk

Immersion why, what is your motivation today? invisible force of internal drive emotion is the force of life effective people/

notes from 4 hour body

Ginger & Sauerkraut for muscle experimentalists keep theoreticians honest- Michio Kaku Separation of expertise means both

The Mundanity of Excellence, by Daniel Chambliss

(Visa: Full text available here. I edited this one a little for readability. Left out the footnotes.) “Olympic sports an

Notes from “The Story of Your Enslavement”

Fear of death and future loss. Threats only work on humans. Farming of humans = most profitable and destructive. Reaching its

“thinking about future”, february 2007

“My father is now bugging me to get a scholarship with the RSAF. It does not interest me at all. I have no interest in t

Stuff I wrote down while watching A Conversation With Elon Musk (and Salman Khan)

I wrote this while watching Salman Khan having a conversation with Elon Musk, this is what stood out to me. Thought I’d

Bum-a-cigarette app idea

Here’s an idea I had as a person with a problem that’s not being solved efficiently. I who started out as a veheme

bach, reddit

[–]Rhapsodie 26 points 4 days ago Bach is ANYTHING but mechanical. In fact his music is so emotional sometimes it makes C

What makes a story great, by Marcus Geduld

Originally posted on Quora. Marcus is a Shakespearean director and one of my absolute favourite people I’ve had the priv

How to survive NS

Here is something I’ve wanted to write for a long long time but have been procrastinating on because I visualized someth

“See you when I’m forty years old”, by Xavier Koh

“Rule of Thumb: When you find yourself carelessly engaging in envy of people who seem to be ‘living the life’

revolution, on reddit

[–]avaslash 2046 points 17 days ago* The thing is revolution requires once special thing. Actual problems. What is an act

on drugs, from reddit

beathau5 What is the worst permanent life decision that you’ve ever made? from AskReddit Drugs (in particular coke) prov

self-development is self-destruction, by xavier koh

“There’s a particular self-development paradox I’ve consistently encountered, but haven’t managed to g

Fun with INTJs: Constructive Criticism

Q: I have a small pet peeve that is perhaps indicative of my INTJ personality type. Whenever I engage in constructive criticis

Book Review: Best of Quora 2010-2012

I received this book in the mail as a part of my “Top Writer 2012” package (along with a sweet t-shirt). I only ju

independent thinking will be the new literacy

I sometimes run into people who call themselves realists and say “Look, Visa, some people are just stupid- MOST people a

we should at least know who we’re killing

I’m not a big fan of the death penalty. That said, if we DO practice the death penalty, I’m against it being so hu

Links useful to me when studying as a Private A Level Candidate

(This post is incomplete but I just gotta put it out there) Once you’ve picked your subjects, I think the most important

unsorted-thoughts-2

RELATIONSHIP HACKS: 1: It is remarkably difficult to have an unproductive argument while you’re walking together, and/or

unsorted thoughts

PRACTICAL EVERYDAY LOGIC: I’ve been thinking that there ought to be a universal “practical everyday logic” e

RE: The future of education

Prediction: education will be disrupted from without before it is reformed from within. Bureaucracy and legacy will keep exist

Introducing My Super Secret Mailing List

Hi. Sometimes there are things that I want to say, but don’t entirely feel comfortable sharing in a space as public as m

Richard Branson Quotes

From True Grit, Opinion piece in some business magazine: The ability to tap into your determination and grit… you can te

Summary of Thinking, Fast and Slow

PART 1: TWO SYSTEMS 1: The Characters of the story (System 1 & 2) 2: Attention and Effort 3: The Lazy Controller 4: The As

sia girls makeup

Wait, why is a Perspective writer writing about fashion stuff? Well, fashion can be pretty serious business, ya know.&nbs

systems must adapt.

“I am certainly not an advocate for for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfe

how you find yourself ah

that time you in NS. coz you say after you ORD you lost how you find yourself ah go back to the basics and make sure to keep

On Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers

Outliers was the first Malcolm Gladwell book that I read and enjoyed from cover to cover. I believe the central idea of the bo

Building Blocks of Storytelling (Ira Glass)

Building blocks of storytelling: 1: Anecdote. Sequence of actions- what is a story in its purest form? The plot. It has a mome

Revolutionize Education, make learning fun

I’ve been watching more TED Talks recently- and I’ve stumbled upon a few gems. I’ve decided I’m going

Starting work – excited to be among thoughtful, kind, high-functioning people [2013]

2014 EDIT: Just to avoid confusion; this was written at the start of 2013! I’m still working here and having loads of fu

Buying a HDB flat [2013]

He sits in an empty house with the woman of his dreams nestled in his lap like a kitten, only bigger, more beautiful and more

summary of entire blog, part 2

In part 1 I summarized all blog posts until the end of 2010. So here we begin with 2011. Mandatory New Year Post 2011 2010 y

10 Facets of Gamification

Achievement: A badge, a level, a reward, or points given to a person for accomplishing something. Levels: Breaking a storyline

summary of entire blog, part 1

(part 2, part 3, part 4) Gig Reviews: Stasis 10: Curtain Call Baybeats 08 Results Flybar & Ronin Valentine’s Letter�

What 2013 Visa has to say about 2008 Visa’s writing.

In this post, I criticize the writing of the first post on my blog, 5 years later. Here’s the original post. 2008: R

career guidance

Ever considered teaching writing skills? Or even being a consultant for social media / training? PR is a possibility but you m

education, woodshedding

though if i take things in perspective i am being nitpicky and missing the larger point of education what is the larger point

conversating about conversation

Dear Visakan, On your Quora profile and in your blog I read that you are interested in conversations. I’m curious about

Decluttering my bookmarks

First I’m listing them all out. With reasons. No good reason, delete. Quora: Quora: What could a 20 year old do to impro

just another cockanathan

XK Just want to muse with you have you ever felt VV your cock? no XK that as you attain more experience it’s almost as i

NS Memories

I remember my enlistment day, April 19th 2010. It was over 15 months ago. (Now over 2 years ago!) I remember going to Pasir Ri

Penang 2012

This is an old post that was sitting around unfinished for a long time. It’s still unfinished. Posting it anyway. I’m

No, I Won’t Be Going To University [2012]

I wrote this in December 2012. I have been thinking about the University question for some time, and I decided to get some inp

Thoughts on reading Mastery, by Robert Greene

I deeply enjoyed Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power. It’s not like he’s saying anything new, but something

How do atheists cope with the moments of despair and loss in their lives?

This is an answer I posted on Quora.com which I am particularly proud of. Atheism: How do atheists cope with the moments of d

Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles

I bought The Martian Chronicles at a library book sale. I’ve been to 3 sales so far. I believe I bought it in either th

building the story

an idea has been tossing around my head for years and years and I plan to get started on it after my a’s- which is to wr

October 2012

I have many thoughts on my mind, and sometimes they immobilize me. So I should start by writing them down. 1: I’d like t

flies

so few people left on livejournal sticking around is vastly underrated as a competitive strategy

Write Till You Drop, by Annie Dillard

Write Till You Drop By ANNIE DILLARD People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not

Standard Deviation

Standard deviation is a measure of statistical dispersion. It’s the square root of variance. We take the square root bec

Why is there nothing in A Level Economics about commercial banks?

Here’s something I’ve been quite frustrated about. As I’ve revisited “A” Level Economics, I stil

contemplating the universe

One of the most amazing things that the human mind is able to do is to contemplate the Universe. Now, few of us are reall

On Jealousy

By “Anon User” When does love make one miserable and jealous? It does not. You misread your own feelings. The buzz

Obama

“In White House jargon this was a meeting of “the principals,” which is to say the big shots. In addition to Biden a

on recurring dreams, guilt and free will

I woke up today feeling fresh and recharged and ready to take on the world- which I will, in a short while, but I want to get

How I’m studying as an ‘A’ Levels Private Candidate

After choosing my subjects, the first thing I wanted to do was to get very intimately acquainted with my syllabus. It’s

Studying H2 Literature as a Private Candidate, pt 1

First of all, after making the decision to do H2 Literature, I have to pick my texts. Here are my choices: Section B: Prose *

Dear Guitar: You matter to me

This isn’t to any particular guitar. I’ve had a few guitars over the years. Interestingly, I’ve never actual

Productivity: Set aside sacred time for Work

2024 update: the interesting thing about this post is that it’s an unintentionally great representation of my worldview

Freakonomics

Freakonomics- Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner I first read Freakonomics when I was still in secondary school, and I t

Spiritual Atheism: What is life?

What is life? Most of us think of it in terms of biology- plants, animals, fungi and bacteria. By such strict definitions, con

Vision: To contribute to human welfare by diminishing ignorance

I want to contribute to human knowledge and welfare. How does one do that? There’s a central structure at the root of it

Bill O’Reilly makes me sick.

Have not felt this angry in a while. Jan2025: original video’s account was deleted, but I believe it’s this: https

My Mass Effect Experience

I want to talk about Mass Effect. I first started when I played Mass Effect 2 on my friend’s Playstation 2. As with Drag

Thinking about Pete Wentz

I’m thinking about Pete Wentz before I go to bed. I follow him on Twitter. Why? I suppose because he was the bassist and

Meeting Dr. Bruce Hood

I had the wonderful honour of having an “interview” with Dr. Bruce Hood today, courtesy of Campus Magazine. (It wa

W17D2- a teacher’s passion

I’ve decided to make it a point to start writing something every day. This is not a new decision but it’s another

My Goals as a Tutor

I intend to be a tutor and mentor to Singaporean teenagers once I’m done re-taking my A-levels. There are many tutors ou

Sam Harris, on Free Will

Wherever you stand on the matter, this was a good watch. Sam Harris, on free will. — The New York Times – Why Afgh

Education Reform & Disruption: To what extent will online education replace brick-and-mortar education in the next 10 years?

Bob Scott: If it’s not a revolution, online education is certainly an upheaval that’s going to replace a big chunk of wha