unquote of the day

Harlo? Ah Seng 啊? 今晚有没有回家吃?

our lecturer A/P Lee Kim Seng's handphone rang during Engineering Visualization & Modeling lecture today. That line was from me.

autograph

A girl asked for my autograph at Block EA's lift lobby.

I didn't have those big marker pen with me, if not I could've drawn a crab for her.

fast and reliable

This is a sort-of-documentary about a one legged bike messenger Dexter Benjamin from New York.

Notice how funny it is when he passed by FedEx and UPS trucks. Kind of reminds me of the Japanese movie Messenger which I like a lot.

People with physical disabilities are making so much sense and meanings out of their life. What am I doing with both my legs?

kill with kindness

It was 11pm. From my room I could hear the TV show word by word. I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed a knife went to next door and told my inconsiderate neighbour to turn down the volume, with that zhuai smile on my face, ended with a very nice, sweet thank you from my lips.

My smile can be more horrible.
(if I had hidden a knife with me, then it would be called 笑里藏刀)

biz girls' engin teh tarik

After this incident, Jack and hj have been bugging me to intro the business girls to them. So today I asked them over to have lunch with us at Engin canteen.

-_-" somehow the desperate guys were too shy to talk to the girls. hj made a lousy attempt to publicise his canoeing club's activities, but the girls seemed to be more interested in climbing club, which I didn't even mention to them.

Oh the girls said that Engin canteen's tea is the best in NUS! They called it teh tarik, and I was wondering why... then they said cos got bubbles... err...

Try placing the cup far far below the tap.

重阳节

Today is 重阳节!

What is 重阳节? In traditional Chinese 《易经》, 9 denotes yang, and today it's the 9th day of the 9th month in the lunar calendar, 日月并阳, 两九相重, that's why it's called 重阳. The Chinese believe that it's a day to celebrate, and so we have 重阳节.

What do traditional Chinese do on 重阳节? 登高和赏菊! (climb hills and watch chrysanthemum)

Today i climbed the slope outside Yusof Ishak House.

Tag: 重阳

soundwave reflection

Another story of me sitting next to the window.

Soundwave actually travels in straight line. I was sitting next to the window, then I thought I heard a speaker right next to my ear (clearly the only thing to my left was the window pane) So I stuck my head out of the window (kids don't try, kor kor got professional training) and found that the music came from my inconsiderate neighbour who likes to blast music. His window was at 45 degree and so was mine.

Perfect angle of reflection.

homing pigeon

Yesterday morning I was sitting in front of my computer (which is just beside the window), then suddenly a pigeon flew into my house and stood next to me.

My first reaction was to dive away... that scared the hell out of the pigeon as well and so it flew out too.

I know it was trying to make friend with me, but... pigeon craps can transmit brain disease. (oh yah people read my craps also can go mad)

flammable blog

My blog is flammable, cos my blog is crappy. Crap produces methane gas, which can be used as fuel.

So far I've encountered 2 flamings. One is when I made fun of Ameet, then another Sikh thought I was making fun of them, so all sorts of vulgarities came out, insulting Asians which he himself clearly is one. The other incident was when I said a secondary school has a unique unform that shows the school telephone number when the students don't tuck in their shirt. Then the students started calling mothers...

When flaming starts, number of readers skyrockets. Why flame a crappy blog when they know the contents are supposed to be craps?

Tag: flaming

seats of opportunity (part 2)

(part 1 here. Actually not really related)

1. I pay bus fare, you pay bus fare, is it fair that a fat guy eats into my space? Imagine there was already a pole in between his seat and mine, yet his butt and arm still crossed the boundary. That's why I like SMRT buses, the boundary is clearer than on SBS Transit buses. Still, people continue to invade others' private space. Sometimes I wish there's a Berlin Wall in between seats.



2. You are taking a nap on the bus. The seat beside you is empty. Someone lands his/her heavy butt onto the empty seat. By conservation of mass, the air in the cushion has nowhere to escape under the sudden force, and has to go to your side of the cushion. You experience a sudden upward force. Only occurs on SBS Transit buses



3. Some people, out of some reasons (maybe they want to offer it to those who needs it more), just refuse to sit down on a bus, regardless of how empty or crowded the bus is. The problem is, they don't walk in, and they jam up the aisle, thus more people cannot board the bus. Didn't know sitting down can be such a big sacrifice to them.



4. I saw someone taking a nap on the aisle seat, his head rocking left and right. Then his head hit a standing lady's butt.



5. Someone's going to complain my blog is turning into a transport blog.

Tag: bus

learning safety by accident

Must people learn safety by accident?

A few days ago my brother went biking with his friends at Pulau Ubin. They were going down a slope and this guy jammed the brake, thus locking the wheels and his mountain bike lost control. He fell, breaking his arm under his own weight. It was my brother's first time seeing a forearm making 90 degrees. =S They had to activate the Police Coast Guard to send him back to Singapore.

So after my brother told us the incident, my mother said "乐极生悲", obviously disapprove of outdoor activites. But I felt that if you don't encounter it, then you won't know, and my brother agreed with me (quoting my rockclimbing -_-). My brother fell off while cycling when he was young, broke his teeth, and now he knows the effect of jamming brake while going at high speed. Another guy on the trip was about to collide with the first guy who broke his arm, but he jumped off from his bike and ended up unscratched, well cos he's a motorbiker and most probably he had fallen enough times...

It's like there are road accidents happening but that shouldn't stop people from driving, right? Feel kind of selfish that we learn safety at the expense of others having accidents.

quote of the day

What gets us into trouble
is not what we don't know

It's what we know for sure
that just ain't so

-- Mark Twain

I spent 4 hours in school trying to figure out what I don't know.
Now I know more about what I don't know.
That's quite horrible.

can lah

Learned something interesting in Mechanics of Material lecture this morning.

manufacturers of aluminum cans exercise the same attention and precision as do makers of the metal in an aircraft wing. The engineers who press the design of cans toward perfection apply the same analytical methods used for space vehicles.
...
Such a can, whose wall surfaces are thinner than two pages from this magazine, withstands more than 90 pounds of pressure per square inch--three times the pressure in an automobile tire.

-- September 1994; Scientific American Magazine;
by Hosford, Duncan

Wow, so it's actually a piece of precision engineering~
To the aunties who collect cans: must appreciate hor!
(actually I have a humble collection of Coca-Cola cans...)

ipc summit 2006

After a long period of inactivity, the India-Pakistan-China Summit resumed at the Pakistani ambassador Mister Rizwan's residence today at his Hari Raya reception.

Eager to catch the first bite, Ameet and I reached Rizwan's house before the official start of the reception. That was really nice home-made gourmet there, and what caught me most was the desert called gulab jamun. It's actually milkballs in syrup, and it's really sweet~! What's more, it's coated with a thin layer of silver which is similar to Chinese coating thin layer of gold on food(金箔). Rizwan's ISE friends were suspicious that it was aluminium foil....

Felt a teeny weeny bit out of place, cos Rizwan's 6 friends from Industrial System Engineering were talking about highly intellectual stuffs, so left with Ameet and I talked about bending, deflection, failure, and how to make the pillar of Rizwan's house collapse under buckling effect... (that's the close relationship between civil engineering and mechanical engineering)

Actually the ISE guys were going to have group discussion for their term paper at Rizwan's house.

And thanks Rizwan, he had been a busy host today! (there were more ambassadors than just me and Ameet)

selamat hari raya

Selamat Hari Raya!
(ok it's really a holiday today...)

sleeping 1+1

When it comes to sleeping, 1+1 doesn't give 2.

Let's say because of a darn lab report or assignment, you miss 1 hour of sleeping time. You try to compensate the loss by sleeping through your 1 hour bus journey, but you still feel tired. Then you sleep through your 2 hours lecture (not uncommon though) and you still feel tired. Then you sleep again on your way home. Still tired. You can't take it anymore and decide to turn in early after dinner.

On paper, you are clearly getting way more sleep than you normally do, but in reality, oh well......

At least don't need to count sheep anymore.

八卦 engineering

During Sensors and Actuators lecture, the lecturer was teaching logic gate (again), binary signals and their close similarity with the Chinese 八卦 (bagua, not bah kwa!) The Chinese 八卦 or "eight trigrams" is actually a binary system that has up to 64 combinations. There's more science to Chinese traditions huh?

And guess what, after the lecture I was walking along the corridor of Block EA level 3, and I saw the tiles make up symbols of the 八卦 elements on the floor! You really have to see it yourself to believe it...

Hmm... some fengshui behind our ranking?

Tags: 八卦, 易经, 周易

lecture paparazzi

Now I have one more reason not to sleep during lecture (including the 5 mintues break in the middle)

Today I was taking a short nap during the 5 minutes break in LT7, when I opened my eyes I saw a girl aiming her camera phone at me! I stared at her with that "what-are-you-doing" look on my face and she turned away giggling with her friend...

Must bring the "No Photography" sign with me next time.
Or you want to watch "Lecture Uncle 讲堂阿叔" on youtube?

sco @ the racecourse

Went to the racecourse yesterday evening for Singapore Chinese Orchestra's performance. Saw a lot of under-18s there, although the main gate says no admission to those below 18 (ok that's for horse races...)

All the 12 pieces played were related to horses, which includes one of my favourites Sabre Dance. The conductor looked as if he got spasm when they were playing this fast piece. Oh and there were flying insects following his stick =P

There's this funny cellist whose family came to watch her play. Throughout the performance she seemed quite distracted and kept looking at the audience. There was once when the whole orchestra stood up at the end of a piece, she was still sitting down looking at her family, then she suddenly realised what was going on and jumped up. Haha.

A bit disappointed why they didn't put a few horses there for fun ride.

student survey

Saw this on snoookems' blog.
The clip's taken from a EEE lecture from our dear year 3 friends in NTU.
So who said engineers are boring?

special agent dream

A few nights ago I had a very freaky dream.

I dreamed of myself walking out from my main door. I saw a few suspicious looking guys standing at either side of the corridor, glancing at me. Then I started to run down the stairs and they also started running after me. Then I took out my pistol...

In reality, maybe I do know a bit more than I should.
And there's a joke about me having the database of all the girls in NUS.

happy deepavali

Happy Deepavali!

(no off-in-lieu for us on Monday though. That's pretty weird, we study hard and pay school fees to be in university, yet we always want lessons to end early, less homework, more holidays, etc etc... shouldn't it be the other way round to squeeze the most out from the school?)

wah karl

This week's Political Science lecture talked about Marxism.

The gist of Marxism is the creation of a classless society (yeah, no lessons~) which itself sounds quite ideal. But like ideal gas, this doesn't occur in reality.

A relative of mine has been chasing after his wages for close to a year. I mean his stupid former employer always has a way not to pay up the remaining sum, excuses like no cash, etc etc... The law doesn't protect all workers, cos there ain't written contract for every occupation around.

Can't employers see the link that when company takes care of its workers, the workers will take care of the company? Or is it employers now see workers as highly replaceable resources just like machines, refuse to work then just change to a new one?

Exploitation doesn't only occur in third world.

Tag: marxism

coffee spill

Somehow I was very tired yesterday, so I was hoping some coffee from canteen could boost me up. With coffe cup swinging in hand, I walked into LT7 from the back door. So tired that I couldn't walk straight, I walked down the steps in a zig-zag motion, very much like air molecules. When I got to my row my coffee cup swung and hit the edge of the desk...

Some of the coffee spilled out from the drinking hole onto the desk. Luckily that seat was vacant (hj reserved it for me), so no collateral damage resulted (imagine someone's notes could have been there). For a moment I was so lost until hj took out a packet of tissue paper, then I began to have some reaction. (like how people react in movie/TV drama after their car hit someone, minus the tissue part)

Didn't know walking with fatigue could be so dangerous.

pilot hairpin

Today during Political Science lecture, I saw a girl use a red Pilot G2 pen as a hairpin for her long hair...

I thought that was quite innovative.

Kind of reminds me of those Chinese female assasins who get close to their perverted target and then use the hairpin to stab the prey to death...

Cunning.

quote of the day

one equation, one unknown
Life is perfect!
--Associate Professor Cheng Li
Department of Mechanical Engineering, NUS

internal stupid bastard

What the *beep*!! (ok this outburst of rage is absolutely necessary)

This morning I almost got knocked down by an ISB bus! I alighted from 151 at OED bus stop and was about to cross over to Raffles Hall via the zebra crossing. I did the 3 steps of "Stop, Look, Walk" which we all learned during primary school days. I was halfway through the zebra crossing when this ISB service B came speeding down the road. I very narrowly escaped inelastic collision.

C'mon, are those uncles bored with driving round and round campus whole day, or are they just trying to show off their Initial-D skills in front of pretty undergrad girls?

Must suggest to have road crossing monitors around in campus.

an inconvenient truth

(I know my factory is spilling smoke 24/7, but those ain't harmful)
An Inconvenient Truth is one of the most unusual movies I've watched. Starring US former Vice President Al Gore, the movie talks about the effect of global warming.

It is unusual in the sense that you feel like watching a documentary, yet also feel like watching webcast lecture, but there's also bits and pieces on Al Gore's personal and political life. Nevermind, concentrate on the environment part.

In his presentation Al Gore used statistics, facts and pictures to illustrate to us the impact of global warming. Some of the environmental changes in the past 50 years are indeed alarming, eg we can really see the melting of the polar ice and glaciers from photos. "By far the most terrifying film you will ever see." And do look out for the famous quotes he used in his slides.

The preview.

Oh and this is funny.

Tags: an inconvenient truth, global warming

finished watching ms igloo

(Ok I know there's a lot of Gundams appearing here recently.)
Just finished the 3 episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam MS igLoo The Hidden One Year War and 3 episodes of MS igLoo Apocalypse 0079.

The story revolves around Oliver May, a technical officer from this test unit 603 onboard the ship Jotunheim. The 603 is a R&D unit tasked with testing and evaluating new weapons for the Zeons. Somehow all the tests in the story would fail...

In my opinion this is one of the better Gundam series. It tells the story of the One Year War from the Zeon's point of view.(the Zeons ain't all bad actually) Near the end of the story when the situation turned desperate, even Oliver May, a non-combatant, had to sit in the cockpit and fight. At first he was reluctant, but soon he realised his duty (afterall so many ace pilots died carrying out HIS tests) At the very end when the crew of Jotunheim thought everyone had died fighting, the touching scene came in with Oliver's hot-headed boss, Monique Cadillac, coming back with Oliver on the palm of her MS Zudah.

Oh well, I kind of wished Oliver and Monique could have become lovers...

Tags: ms igloo, gundam

quote of the day

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
William Shakespeare

I wonder, if we are all acting, then where are all our true selves?
When we act, are we lying?
Our world is so full of acts and lies.

coffee engineering

After a series of intensive tests, I conclude that the coffee at Dillys Creation is lousy. It just tastes like water plus sugar and artificial colourings. Go for engin canteen coffee, probably the best coffee in NUS. (sounds like Carlsberg)

Do you know that you can do a lot of experiments with the coffee cup?

hold the plastic carrier and swing the coffee cup in a vertical circle to study circular motion. The coffee won't spill out (as long as the lid is still tight)

there's the coffee cup calorimeter to study heat transfer

place a half-full coffee cup into a pool to investigate free surface effect.

add creamer, stir in clockwise direction, then anti-clockwise, to get back the unmixed creamer. (don't try, you will end up having diarrhoea) Proof of ideal fluid

the lid and the cup is having force fit of H7/u6

by superposition theorem, the effect of drinking coffee in the middle of lecture is the sum of sleeping in the first half and staying awake in the second half

connect the coffee cup to 220V AC source (Ok that's too much!)

mickey rice

During lecture this morning, snoookems just told averii who siu hang is...

Now a paper bag over my head isn't enough, I need gunny sack...
Going to school feels like robbing a bank.

sucker

My former boss Steven once told me, "my boss said to me, don't be a sucker, be a f*cker!"
Think it's pretty much like a vacuum cleaner, sucking in everything that comes into its path, both good things and bad things. But how often do you find a diamond inside the vacuum cleaner?

In Chinese it's called 逆来顺受.

That day I SMSed my brother telling him that I would be late for dinner at home. When I reached home I got bombarded by them, saying that I didn't tell them i would be late and everyone waited for me for dinner. Then my brother looked at his handphone and realised that he didn't read a hour-old SMS from me. I didn't talk back. I got scolded for free.

During army days, there's once I got called into the office and was told I would be confined for the weekend. They asked me what offence did I commit, I said nothing. Then they realized they caught the wrong person. I almost got punished for doing nothing wrong.

On the bus or during lectures, people like to kick my seat. I don't like it, but I didn't do anything.

And I feel guilty whenever my friends feel unhappy.

Looks like I'm a good sucker.
(still running for Nobel Peace Prize ok!)

Z Gundam III -- Love is the Pulse of the Stars

Just finished watching Z Gundam III, the last of the Gundam Z movies trilogy. (see also I and II) Same old comments, they added some new CGs and since it is a condensed version of the original 50 episodes series, the scenes don't connect that well. The ending has changed slightly happier, Camille didn't turn mentally incapacitated after defeating Scirocco, and I ain't complaining.

The classic scenes are still inside, eg, my favourite Hyaku Shiki vs The O + Qubeley, Radish shelding Gundam Mk II and got sunk in the process, and lastly Z Gundam crashing into The O in wavewider form.

Got guest appearance of Amuro and Sayla at the end.

Tags: gundam, z gundam