gone bouldering

Went bouldering at ClimbAsia this afternoon and man it was awesome!
I pulled my tricep. -_-"

It has been a very long time since I last did bouldering, and it felt good to be doing routes and stuff again. All the funny postures like drop-knee and Egyptian... There were lots of climbing girls there, you see them climb you will understand what does "girl power" mean.

my friend OTC doing some cliff-hanging
sorry, no pics of me.
This coming Sunday morning I will be climbing at SAFRA Yishun, anybody interested?

© and copyright

I came across a local website that links to other blogs and sites, and put a "Copyright © 2008" behind. It is highly likely to be infringing the Copyright Act.

What is copyright actually? According to the Copyright Act, "27.(2) Subject to the provisions of this Act, where an original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work has been published (a) copyright shall subsist in the work."
To put it simpler in less law sor term, anything that is original is protected by copyright. Such as your blog entries.

How long is it protected? "28.(2) Subject to this section, where, by virtue of this Part, copyright subsists in a literary, dramatic or musical work, or in an artistic work other than a photograph, that copyright shall continue to subsist until the expiration of 70 years after the expiration of the calendar year in which the author of the work died."
Again, to put it simpler, your work will be protected for 70 years + your remaining life.

Who owns the copyright? "30.(2) Subject to this section, the author of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work shall be entitled to any copyright subsisting in the work by virtue of this Part."
Copy and pasting other people's work and putting a "Copyright © 2008" behind doesn't make you the copyright owner.

What about the offences? Nah it sounds too scary, let's just say it includes fine and imprisonment.

So, if the kid is not your son, don't go around telling people claiming he's your son.

happy vip

To all the coursemates who are doing Vacation Internship Programme (VIP) this summer break (ie, starting today),

happy VIPeeing!
Make sure you take home something =) (I don't mean take home the stuff in the factory or company, I mean learn something from your internship!)

Career talks are blind, internship opens your eyes. You will get to know how shitty some industries are. Knowing which industry not to get into is equally important as knowing which industry to get into.

some mothers

Today I went for the Mother's Day Special concert at the Esplanade. The show was supposed to start at 3pm, but by 2pm there was already a long queue outside the Concert Hall. Some people were just trying very hard to find excuses to cut the queue, right in front of the security guards. What's new.

So the show started, and there were 4 old aunties sitting in front of me. Let's not talk about why their kids were not there, or maybe they were one another's mother or something, but they were like talking non-stop throughout the performance. Fighting with the state-of-the-art sound system, "chopping" seats for people who weren't there even till the end of the show... C'mon, if you want to make noise, go somewhere and open mahjong table can?

(oopz, i made the assumption that aunties must be mothers)

folding shopping cart

If there's one thing I want to redesign, it's the folding shopping cart.

A simple yet great device that has benefited countless number of housewives (and maids), the folding shopping cart has seen action from the shiny tiles of supermarkets, to the wet and uneven ground of the wet markets. You can push it, you can pull it, you can put nothing in it, or load it over the brim. It always amuses me to see aunties maneuver the cart over the most difficult of terrains.

At a height of 179cm, I always find it a pain in the ass back to handle the folding cart. If I push it, I'll have to lean forward; if I pull it, I'll have to lean sideway depending on which hand is pulling. Either way, my back will ache at the end of the grocery run. My relatively higher centre of gravity coupled with the small front wheels of the cart also increase the danger of me tilting forward when pushing the cart and hitting some obstacle in the path. My long strides make my heels hit the cart when pulling.

All I need is a longer handle.

personalized ventilation

I just attended a briefing for a research project by the Department of Building, NUS.

It is said that in an urban setting, people spend up to 90% of the time indoor. And more than 90% of these indoor environments are air-conditioned, so we are like spending most of our time air-conditioned. This poses challenges to environment and efficiency. Raising the aircon temperature setting may reduce power consumption, but the air quality deteriorates at the same time.

Basically the research is on evaluating the performance of a new type of ventilation system. This new design is pretty interesting. Think of it this way: you are in the big office and you are the only one working. If there is a desk lamp, do you use the desk lamp or do you keep the whole office lighted up with the rows of fluorescent tubes? So here comes the new design, a nozzle that will supply fresh cool air to individuals, something like on a bus. Why chill the whole office when all you need is to keep your cubicle/desk cool?

Maybe, you can even choose your own flavor of fresh air. Marlboro red?

design project reimbursement

Coursemates from NUS ME Department, the reimbursement for the industrial design project has been credited to the bank account, do check it out!

Although theoretically it's your own money, but still it feels good to see the amount. It sounds wrong to call it pleasant surprise. Damn, my few months of interest...


Oh, under the invoice details, it says "PURCHASE GENERATORS". Erm, I didn't buy no generator. Next time I should try putting "PURCHASE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT", sure sounds cool.

how sentosa express switch rail

Have you wondered how does the Sentosa Express switch rail? Being a monorail system, the mechanism is slightly different from normal railway's switching mechanism and in my opinion it's quite spectacular.

The other day I went to Sentosa and took this set of pictures:

the track from the station leads to the right track, which goes to Sentosa
something's moving...
this sure looks scary
docking completed! The left side is for trains coming from Sentosa back to VivoCity
There are 4 moving supports for the switch rail, of which only the furthest is powered by a linear motor.

Looks like elephant trunk -_-"

solidworks flow simulation

The latest issue of SolidWorks Express newsletter talks about designing the arrangement of cooling fans to prevent the circuit from overheating.


This saves the trouble of having to do physical test with the various arrangements and can save cost too. I still remember during my days as research intern, my group mate was constantly sniffing for burning smell in case the DSP chip burn out. He did burn some chips.

Didn't know SolidWorks is so powerful...

conned by air-con

When you enter an air-conditioned room and want it to get cooled faster, do you have the habit of grabbing the remote control and punching the down button until the digit shows 16? (or, zer0 if possible)

Actually it doesn't work that way. An air-conditioner basically has 2 modes: on and off. Ie, either it is full blasting cold air, or it is blowing nothing. When you set the thermostat to 25 degrees Celsius, the air con will cool the room to 25 and try to maintain it there. Setting it to 16 does not make the room temperature reach 25 faster. The rate of cooling is constant. So it will just overshoot 25, go down to 16, then when people feel too cold, they set the thermostat back to 25. In a more crude and oversimplified way, the thermostat trips the circuit when the set temperature is reached.

Argh, screw the engineering. Who cares as long as you feel unscientifically good?

(the other day we were at TCC when some of us saw that the aircon wasn't switched on. So we asked the staff if she could lower the temperature. Her reply was "there's only on and off" -_-" K, that set doesn't even have a thermostat. Actually if I'm not wrong, public buses' air-con also only has on and off mode. What can be adjusted is the fan speed though.)

publishing your own book

Have you ever thought of publishing your own book? Your stories, your dreams, your journals, your ideas, your views... if I have enough engineering and design ideas, I would really wish to publish my own book and have it in libraries and big bookstores.

Now there's something called Self Publishing. It's like printing your own t-shirt. You choose your book format, submit the manuscript, and there you go! Now you can call yourself an author.

Sounds cool right?