berhenti at raffles hall

Yesterday I was walking up that path beside Raffles Hall which leads to Block EA. Then near Block VI I bumped into Associate Professor MAJ(NS Retired) Dr Winston Seah Kar Heng. Somehow the both of us berhenti (malay, marching command for halt) there at the cross road.

I almost saluted him.

me2135 continuous assessment

to my ME2135 Fluid Mechanics II course mates:

To help you kickstart the write-up, the following are some tips.
First, you must go and find Siggi's article. The NUS Libraries website should be helpful. Just follow the instruction that Siggi wrote. You should be able to find whom he has quoted from the article itself.

Next, find one article that has quoted Siggi. If you haven't made friend with Google, then make friend with me. Harvard University seems to be Siggi's friend, and you can find 10 citations to Siggi's articles HERE. Take your pick, but look out that some are not published yet. I think.

Now on to part II, you can choose to go to Central Library, and if you are lucky, you will find all the journals loan out. Checking out LINC is a good idea. Anyway you still need to find the call number, so you HAVE to check LINC (unless you copy from a friend). Take note that the library has stopped subscribing to the printed copy of some journals and so you may be left with the electronic copy. E-Journals is where you should go then.

Might as well give you the links.
Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Physics of Fluids
Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics
Experiments in Fluids

Ok you are on your own. Feel like writing RPG game walkthrough.

zebra crossing bastard

If you are driving and you happen to see me at the zebra crossing, I think you will call me a bastard.

Why? Cos if I see a car speeding down towards the zebra crossing, ridiculously far enough for me to cross but fast enough to knock me down, I'll just take one step down onto the zebra crossing, stand still there, stare in the direction of the driver's seat, wait for the car to stop completely (and I mean 0.00 m/s), then cross safely.

Why? Cos I had a few near-misses before. I was crossing the road and those drivers refused to slow down or stop and they just sped down when I was barely 3/4 way across. My leg was like a few inches from the bumper lor. If you don't make them stop, they'll just take their chance.

I'm not going to take my chance. I'm not Robocop or Gundam and my body is not made of steel.

Tag:zebra crossing

crappy merchandise on sale!

Check out the Department's Store for the latest chillycrapy merchandise!

Products range from T-shirt to mug, and if you like my blog's crappy images, you can ask me to have them printed on T-shirt.

We accept MasterCard, BastardCard and SlaveCard. All profit goes to chillycraps Coffee Money Fund.

showing the drain

Why do some people (both males and females) like to show their butt cracks?

Erm, it's not quite the same as showing cleavages...

Imagine a Hairy Ass Truman showing his hairy ass to everyone when he bent down....

I still feel traumatized.

painkiller for thought

Who is closer to the truth,
the doctor or the patient?

I've decided not to see the orthopedic specialist anymore. Imagine wasting time and money everytime to get the same lame answer from them over a present problem that has troubled me for the past 4 years.

I will start my own rehabilitation.

To any medicine students out there: being a doctor is not much different from being an engineer. If you are only passionate about the money, you should go business.

english-speaking chinese

observation 1:
I was buying chicken rice at engin canteen, then there was this student from China behind me. He placed his order in English, and the chicken rice auntie couldn't understand him. She tried to use her limited English to communicate with the PRC student, but somehow it took them quite a while before the PRC student finally switched to speaking Mandarin and got what he wanted.

observation 2:
I was looking around at the bazaar at central forum, then I saw this booth selling ink cartridges. So I approached them (the booth was manned by all Chinese) and enquire about the price in Mandarin. Pure Mandarin, no Singlish, no Hokkien, no Tamil, no Bahasa Melayu. The guy replied me in English, with mainland Chinese accent. Somehow I continued to enquire in Mandarin, and he continued to answer in English.

Is there a reason why students from PRC prefer to use English?
(just a disclaimer, I have nothing against people from People's Republic of China)

i was dom

Yesterday I carried a rolled-up carpet from IKEA on my right shoulder. I thought I looked like MS-09 Dom, one of my favourite MS (mobile suit) in the Gundam series which always has a bazooka on its right shoulder.

Sometimes we just like to dream of ourselves becoming the very thing that we like.

quote of the day

arts 是有时间花钱

engin 是没有时间花钱

-- hj on why there is an ATM machine at Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences but not at Faculty of Engineering.

lt7b

This morning I met something stupid at Arts Faculty.

I was walking from AS6 to Block ADM, then suddenly a girl popped up in front of me (sorry, no pop-up blocker) and asked me for direction to LT7B.

girl: excuse me, do you know where is LT7A?
me: it's at engin.
girl: then what about LT7B?
me: there is no LT7B.
girl: but my schedule says LT7B leh...
me: there is LT7, LT7A, but no LT7B.
girl: then may I know where is engin?
me: across the road lor.

Obviously she was doing some experiment or survey, but why couldn't she just ask directly? Who on earth will be asking for direction to lecture theatre in week 3? And she just asked the wrong person. For 4 semesters I have been having most of my lectures at LT7 and LT7A. If she had asked for other faculties' LTs, I could have fallen for the trap.

I felt like wanting to spoil the fun, or should I have brought her to campus security? That should be fun.

Improving Life – the Design of Swedish Innovations

Other than bringing IKEA (and its meatballs) to every continent, Swedish innovations are actually around us everyday.

Organised by the Embassy of Sweden and National Museum of Singapore, the exhibition "Improving Life – the Design of Swedish Innovations" showcases some interesting Swedish innovations (duh!). They can be as common as your Yeo's drink packet, or as high tech as a smart vacumn cleaner that knows which part of your floor is (not) cleaned. If you drink Absolut Vodka everyday, then you can consider it your Swedish everyday life thing.

Open till 11 February from 10am - 9pm at the National Museum of Singapore, admission is free.

You can view some of the photos I've taken HERE.

synchronised tapping

This morning I was on the bus, sitting at the window seat, listening to Gold 90.5 on my earphones, tapping the beat with my fingers, and looking out of the bus window.

Then a Mercedes Benz moved beside the bus and I saw the front passenger tapping the same beat as me. It was like synchronised. I saw the big digital letters "Gold 90.5" on the dashboard console.

That's the wonder of radio wave.

Want to hear what I was listening to?

Tag:radio

quote of the day

This is my only opportunity to speak.
At home I don't speak.
My wife speaks.
-- A/P CJ Tay during ME2114 Mechanics of Materials II lecture

And I saw someone using his Dopod handphone to read my blog during lecture.

quote of the day

uzyn: And specially for chillycraps, who blogs like once every minute, I have lowered the minimum ping update time to 5 minutes. :)
-- uzyn, the boss of ping.sg

does that mean I will have 5 entries piling up before I can ping?

smoker = litterbug

Is it fair to say that most smokers are litterbugs?

I have nothing against smokers, just that have you seen a smoker walking around with ashtray in hand? No. Then where does the ash go? Literally everywhere the smoker goes, when he is smoking that is.

Solution: integrate an ashtray with the cigarette pack. Since most probably smokers carry the cigarette pack with them everywhere they go.

Some smokers say the ban on smoking in eateries is a violation of human rights. Actually why can't restaurants install overhead ventilation fans that suck in the cigarette smoke vertically up before it goes into someone else's nose?

By the way yesterday I saw a lorry's front passenger threw his cigarette butt out of the window. What if it hit a motorcyclist behind?

Tag:smoker

quote of the day

I kopi down, teh up ah!
-- Fabian making fun of A/P Chew Tuan Seng's "copy down" during MA3501 lecture

(kopi: coffee. teh: tea)

coffee vietnamese style

Forgot to share with you all about my new toy.

My brother went to Vietnam last December and bought me a coffee filter cup + 2 packets of Vietnamese coffee powder!

The filter itself works in the principle of a filter. (duh!) First you add coffee powder into the cup, wet the powder, then pour in more hot water and wait for it to finish dripping into your cup below. Not recommended for people who are rushing to lectures.

The intersting things are the ground powder. One packet is the famous Trung Nguyen, which I haven't opened up yet. The other, hohoho.... is the even more expensive chon weasel, aka weasal coffee! It's said that the weasels know how to choose the best coffee beans, then they eat them up but can't digest them, and well, they have to shit the beans out. You can continue the story from here.

The coffee tastes special though, not like anything I have tasted before. (yeah yeah, stop thinking about excrement)

Tag:coffee

use original ink cartridge

Have you seen the advertisement that shows a printer coughing after using non-original ink cartridge? I think it makes some sense.

My Canon printer didn't cough, but it had to swallow a whole new ink cartridge just to clear its throat. I can't believe it I had to use up one whole new ink tank just to clean the nozzle head and nothing improved! How frustrating it was to print force diagram with all the forces missing. The ink cartridge was from SEPOMs. (who knows how long have they been storing those things before selling them in bulk during computer shows)

So I bought an original Canon ink tank to test out. Back to normal. (if that had failed, that means the problem is with the print head. If you change the print head, you might as well change a new printer. $$)

Non-original ink cartridge saves you half the money but gives you twice the frustration.

adventures by the cup

Yesterday I finally claimed my 1 month old reward: I promised myself a cup of Far Coast coffee right after exam, but didn't have the chance to have one during the holidays.

It's kind of weird, you have to choose a lot of combinations before settling on a cup of coffee. I had a Borana Americano take away, and the cup was really cute! (sorry, I'm into new and cute things)

It was quite a downpour at Orchard, so I was like walking with umbrella in hand, slowly walking and sipping coffee while people without umbrellas were squeezing their way under the covered walkway from Orchard MRT Station to Wisma Atria.

Didn't know caffeine can make a person cocky.

Tag: coffee

raiding sheares hall

Yesterday special forces from Department of Crappy Engineering raided a particular Block at Sheares Hall and found this:

*photos removed*

What were 5 underwears doing there lying around?
Someone was stealing male's underwear!!

EDIT: the owner of those underwears doesn't like this entry. Those who are interested can drop me an email for uncensored version of the photos.

curse of the bobo shooter

Our team didn't win in the Trebuchet Competition 2007. Cos our team name is bobo shooter. -_-" (army lingo. Give him an elephant as target also can't hit)

This competition was organized by ASME. Each team was to build a trebuchet according to restrictions set by the organizer and on the day of the competition we were supposed to hit our lecturers with water bombs. ^___^

The competition was quite fun, more like a carnival than a competition. So might as well don't take the outcome so seriously and just enjoy ourselves =) And if our trebuchets can't hit our lecturers, we can always use our own hands to throw. hj and I had some fun playing with a remote control car that he brought along. We looked like kids.

What have I learned through this competition: A lot.
Actually I can be quite stubborn. At times I really would insist on my idea (although sometimes one should stand firm on his belief), such as the design of the machine. Then I told myself I'm not the boss around, and pulled myself a step back to hear what others have to say (although it may not be to your likings. C'mon if everything suits you, then there's world peace liao)
Commitment: you can't really ask for the same level of commitment from everyone in the team. There were times I was quite unhappy about how little time and effort some teammates seemed to put into the project, but then I should have realized that everyone has his/her other commitments. It's just how individual does the division.
Fairness: okay, *sourgrape alert*. Different standards were applied to different teams. Some teams could remove the wooden board at the firing point, some teams could shift their trebuchet back, some teams could use exta length, and of course some teams couldnot. If everything in the real world is fair, then world peace liao lor.

Much that I would want to light the thing up with kerosene, I'm still proud of our trebuchet.

Photos of the event available here. The trebuchet was donated to Hoe's Foundation aka hj's hostel room for research purposes.

Tag: trebuchet

icelandic fluid mechanics

Can you believe it, it's only week 2 and Siggi has covered 8 chapters of Fluid Mechanics II?!?!

Omega!
(it's pronounced as ohmygod in ME2135. We have a lot of ohmygod-1 and ohmygod-2 in lecture)

Other than the impressive videos of water droplets that Siggi has been playing with, the lecture seems dry. Ironically we are dealing with fluids and pumps.

I was thinking, Siggi came to Singapore because he couldn't play with water when it freezes in the winter back in Iceland.

Tag: fluid mechanics

campus security

This morning the Head of Campus Security had a little chat with me.

I wasn't carrying the toolbox or handsaw with me today.

inch and millimetre

What comes to your mind when I say I went shopping with my school friends? Orchard? Vivo?

How about I went hardware shop to buy nuts? (not edible one)

For the ASME trebuchet competition, screws and nuts are not provided, so participants have to get them on our own. The nearest hardware shop to NUS is near Fong Seng.

When we asked for M17 bolt, the auntie was like quite puzzled, cos they only have them in imperial system, ie inches. So we had to use a ruler to convert from metric system to imperial system. The auntie at the hardware shop was quite friendly and patient with us, although we sort of disrupted her lunch =P (plz, nothing to do with me being auntie-killer or that sort)

Last semester Kim Seng taught us bolts and nuts in metric system. At least Kah Heng includes inches in his current module, which is quite useful in exposing us to what is out there. Imagine when we are in the working world and the engineers speak one language, the workers in shopfloor speak another language.

In 1999 a NASA Mars mission failed because the engineers mixed up imperial units with metric units. Why don't the whole world standardize on it? But then, it would be like forcing everyone in the world to have the same religion. Some people believe in inches.

Tags: metric system, measure, bolt, nut

toolbox + handsaw

I remember when I was in semester 1, I saw students walking around in Engin Fac carrying toolbox in hand. (from the plastic toolbox I guess they were from electrical engineering) I thought that was quite cool/scary.

Yesterday I myself was carrying a toolbox around in campus. Plus a handsaw.

The toolbox wasn't light, ~4kg of cold steel. Walking around with it was quite inconvenient. Plus the handsaw in hand. Imagine going into the toilet and doing your business at the urinal with the handsaw... sure can unnerve some cockster peeing beside me. I think I saw some question marks above people's head when I attended lecture at Science Fac LT25.

Some students bring to lesson their dragonboat paddle, kendo sword, fencing épée. I bring handsaw. What the...
Do you think can woo girls with that? =P

Luckily I didn't bring home the toolbox and handsaw. If not someone on the bus would be calling 999 for suspicious articles. (according to the advertisement they are supposed to ask if the stuffs belong to me, and theoretically I am supposed to answer no, cos really don't belong to me, they belong to NUS)

Tag: toolbox

new toy

Introducing my new toy: Philips 170B 17" SXGA LCD monitor.

Bigger screen for SolidWorks, bigger screen for craps. 1280 x 1024px is a bit hard to get used to.

Now I'm back to my desktop.

During the past 2 weeks I have been using my brother's laptop. In a way it's a good thing cos when he's using it, then I have no more computer to use and it sort of forces me to go back to my textbooks and homework. Actually now with the new monitor, he's enjoying his game of FIFA soccer even more.

Tag: monitor

laughter in the rain

Laughter in the rain, a 30 years old song by Neil Sedaka that keeps ringing in my mind recently.

To hear laughter in the rain is better than crying in the rain.

meder & nicholl's birthday

(photos here)
Yesterday the climbing gang celebrated Meder's belated birthday (November) and Nicholl's beearlied birthday (today). Meder was in Bangkok on his birthday and I promised to treat him once he's back, but he flew back to Kyrgyzstan before I had a chance, so it's 2 months late =P

Following our climbing gang's tradition of celebrating birthday at Japanese restaurant, we went to Kyoto Sabo Aji Tei (京都茶房“味亭”) at Bugis Junction yesterday. The food there is nice! I wanted to order kids meal, but... the portion was too small, so I ordered something else. We had "Sayuri" nigori sake, which was quite nice compared to the unknown sake we had at Sakae some 1 year ago. The bottle's pink colour is quite cute too (it's the bottle, not the sake that's pink). Then near the end the sake became real milky, and we realize we forgot to shake well before serving... Meder had one whole cup untouched.

Do check out the dessert, since it's the restaurant's selling point. The parfait is simply fantastic. Meder was saying macha is singular for urine in his language while mochi is plural. I guess Kyrgz won't like Japanese food =P

rgb cable

I'm just wondering, can RGB cable transmit a power surge?

It's like, if my monitor fries, can it wipe out my video card as well?

I'm suspecting something...

iteration 1

Round 1A of Iteration 2 for tutorial balloting hasn't even ended and I have to do manual tutorial registration. What the hell.

This is so screwed up. For my GEK1520 Understanding the Universe, for previous semesters students had to register for tutorial groups via IVLE, but this semester they seem to have switched to using CORS (and the lecturer still made the wrong annoucement in lecture, telling us what first come first serve.)

Then yesterday I happily login to CORS to ballot for tutorial slots, and guess what, "GEK1520-TUTORIAL :There are no class for this activity type open for balloting". (ok fine, MA3501 doesn't even appear. Science Fac is..."special") Then I found out from the tutor that we had to do manual registration and not many slots are left.

Hello, isn't iteration 1 reserved for CELC and ECE modules, according to CORS website? But it seems like many people have gotten their favourite tutorial slots. Next time I should be itchy finger and login to system even if I have no business in there.

When the whole world doesn't follow the rules and you alone follow, then it makes you very dumb.

uncooperative co-op

Sometimes I wonder, does NUS Co-op bookstore serve students, or serve capitalism?

Since my first semester in NUS, the only thing I've bought from the Co-op bookstore is a packet of DARS chocolate. As for my first hand textbooks, I bought all of them from Clementi Bookstore. Why Clementi? Cos there's no queue, they sell books cheaper, and they come with free wrapping. The first 2 points are enough, the 3rd point is a bonus.

Does it work in the same principle that convenience stores sell things more expensive than supermarket, just because they save you a few footsteps? But come to think of it, NTUC Fairprice is also a co-operative, it doesn't mean that ShopNSave cannot sell things cheaper than NTUC. Being fair doesn't mean being cheap, and being cheap is definitely unfair for the other competitors =P.

It's a free market, I'm not complaining.

nus vivocity campus

Is VivoCity a favourite hangout for NUS students?

While waiting for our books to arrive at Clementi Bookstore, Wei Chuan and I decided to go to VivoCity to have a walk (and look at the Swedish ship Gotheborg. I really like the blue souvenir T-shirt, then realise it looks exactly like my blue and yellow AJC jacket...)

Surprise surprise, we saw Kee Beng from Science Fac and his friend sitting at the concourse. According to him it was his free day and he was working as a coolie at the Singapore Cruise Centre. The days of coolies carrying rice sack on their shoulders revisited! $8 per hour ok! Ahem, then we saw hj from Mechanical Engineering walking at the waterfront with a female friend, ahem ahem. Later we kept bumping into the pair and the girl got that why-are-they-following-us look on her face. And then I bumped into Shi Yao from Chemical Engineering and his gang.

Wei Chuan and I went to Toysrus and Miniature Hobby, where he bought a pirated 1/144 ∞Justice Gundam for $7.90! And he was planning to quit playing Gundam models -_-" I really very tempted to buy the World Tank Museum miniature tank, but think I shouldn't spend money on toys...

Think Vivo is a good place to destress.

Tag: vivocity

exam preparation

According to the exam preparation guide by NUS Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning (CDTL),

It is advisable that you start preparing for exams from the beginning of term.

Shucks, so I'm late for 3 days already.

new climb in new semester

To be exact, it has been more than half a year since I last stepped into NUS Rock Gym. I really looked as though I went to 踢馆, cos I was wearing Canoeing Sub-club's T shirt when I walked into Climbing Sub-club this evening... -_-"

Things really have changed a lot within one semester. Junjie has taken over from Kevin, a lot of new faces inside the rock gym, 2 of my bouldering kakis have joined the IVP team. But somethings never change. The front part of the gym is still mostly dominated by the IVP team members, and the tsunami wall is still a killer. Oh I finally receive my membership card! The NRIC portion has my matric number -_-" Wonder why Junjie knows who I am...

Did some ballet move on the wall (it's really fun dancing on the wall!), had a bit of fun on the slab wall. Oh I met Alex's friend Weeli in the gym! Kinda funny to see an Australian university student on Summer holiday in NUS Rock Gym. =P

I wonder how many times will I step into the Rock Gym this semester.

Tag: climbing

staring incident

This is how a staring incident can happen.

I was on the bus to school this morning. Along the way a poly kid and his girlfriend boarded and sat opposite me. I was looking at the passing scenery outside the windows, but through my peripheral vision I saw the kid staring at me. I stared back and he quickly looked away.

Not long later he stared at me again. This time round I stared back, made that sick smile of mine at the corner of my lips, and use my middle finger to pull down my eyelid.

You can guess what happened next.

quotes of the first day of semester

帮帮忙, 迟到了，你们上课也迟到了
-- SBS Transit bus 74 driver, while asking the passengers to move in to the back of the bus
(translation: help help, the bus is late, you all also late for lesson liao.
Ok lousy translation.)

Assoc Prof CHEW TUAN SENG (Department of Mathematics, NUS): To solve new problem, we shall look at old problems, which are related to the above new problem.

SH (Head of Department of Crappy Engineering): then can we bring past year papers into exam hall?

The senior lecturers told me the longest time you can get the attention from the students is 30 minutes. After that you are talking to yourself
-- Dr Cindy Ng, Department of Physics, NUS

form 3 maths

Does anyone know how to solve this question?

Tag: math

gas leak

Went to supermarket yesterday. Grabbed those Iwatani gas canister for the steamboat gas stove.

When I pushed my trolley to the fruit section, suddenly I smelled something foul... Was that a gas leak?! I panicked for a few seconds, started investigating the canisters for leakages (there was once at a steamboat restaurant I cracked an egg with one palm while carrying it back to my table, don't know how I did it but I can't be sure what more good things my fingers can do)

Then I saw the chempedak. I never like its smell.

Oh if you are wondering why the gas canister must be inserted in a certain orientation, this picture should explain why:

blogger zeta

If you are wondering why am I still using the old blogger, that's because, erm, they say my blog is too big, cannot convert -_-"

Understand that this has caused some inconvenience to my dear readers who are using the new blogger, especially Alex who finds it troublesome to login and leave comments, whether it's new blogger or old blogger. -_-#

I've actually done vigourous tests (templates and gadgets) on the new system and is more or less ready to convert. For those who hasn't converted and is very particular about your blog layout, you better test it out! New blogger doesn't retain everything as advertised.

Meanwhile, just appreciate the good old version here.

examination results

Just received my result slip today.

My result didn't slip, in fact it's climbing.
Climb on.

Tag: result

big bad beetleborgs

Didn't cook rice for 2 weeks and what I found in my bucket of rice, a colony of rice weevils!

I used to find those cute little beetles cute, but when you have to get rid of them before putting your rice into the cooker, they don't look that cute anymore. Some even have drilled holes inside the rice grain.

Can someone please tell me how to get rid of them?
I can't possibly spray Baygon...

Tags: beetle, weevil

whiteboard animation

a really cute and interesting animation I came across.
The music is nice too~

drip on

Now I can make really nice cup of coffee at home!

A while ago I did talk about the Key Coffee Drip On from Japan in my old blog. Now I couldn't stand the temptation and finally bought a box for myself, Yokohama City special edition ^-^ (not the one shown on the right)

When I tore open the individual wrapping I could smell the aroma rushing out. Okay it's actually a bottomless paper container with filter in the middle filled with ground coffee, so all you have to do is to unfold the thing, place it on top of your cup, and pour hot water. Then you wait for the coffee to drip into the cup. Sugar and creamer not included.

Available at Isetan, NTUC Fairprice Bishan, and Jusco. Worth a try if you are into cheap but good coffee.

Tag: coffee

fairprice xtra, xtra fairprice

Went to Ang Mo Kio Central yesterday to stock up on food supply. Was about to go straight to the NTUC FairPrice next to the makeshift bus interchange when I saw people walking out from the new-but-not-yet-opened AMK Hub carrying NTUC plastic bags. Then I saw the banner that says what FairPrice Xtra at basement 2.

Is there something called extra fair or fairly extra? Fair means fair, what on earth is extra fair?

The first feeling it gave me was a mixture of Giant and Carrefour. Not only does it sell foodstuff, the Xtra FairPrice also has never-heard-before brands clothes and electrical appliances. No thanks, I'll stick to the edible stuffs.

The big trolleys were annoying. Ok the hypermart is big, but the walkways are narrow. The crowd didn't help a bit. Forget about international right-of-way rule for sea law, and I almost crashed a whole tower of dunno-what chocolate boxes. Some people with itchy hands liked to molest my trolley, wish I had painted the trolley with a coat of fresh chicken blood...

The most ironic thing I felt was to queue up to let people earn our money.

curry shaken, not stirred (by earthquake)

I got shaken by the Taiwan earthquake.

Did quite a bit of hiking during the South China trip. On Boxing Day I went for a short hike at Plover Cove, afterwhich I had dinner at a Thai restaurant near the foot of the hill. Halfway through I felt the table and chair shaking. At first I thought someone was shaking his leg, and I almost went "ooi, stop shaking liao lah". But everyone started asking why was the ground shaking...

That's 7.1 on the Richter scale for me. Luckily my curry didn't spill out.

Everything seemed alright at first. I even chatted with hj on my phone on roaming the next day. Then when I tried to access CORS for module bidding at a public internet kiosk, I couldn't get through the NUS website. Not yahoo, not google (but somehow I could reach NTU...) I thought it was all thanks to the 2 kids playing online games beside me. Luckily I had contingency plan for bidding, I left a detailed bidding instruction for my brother before I left Singapore. Engineers love redundancy.

The newspaper there called it 无网之灾. A lot of people felt very lost without internet & MSN (expected), some even said they will switch ISP (that's dumb), while an office worker actually told the reporter that the earthquake forced people to talk on phone instead of email exchanges, which is a good thing for interpersonal communication.

People need a good shake to realise how vulnerable we are. Imagine it was the phone network that got knocked out.

Tag: earthquake

people's republic of crappiness

Just came back from my 2 weeks trip to South China.

Luckily I took out my scientific calculator from my backpack before the trip, if not I could have been calculating the Bernoulli's equation across the airliner's engine or the hoop stress of the aircraft's body during the flight, or the bending moment for the suspension bridge in Hong Kong, or the mechanism inside the wind turbine on Lamma Island(that was one of the exciting things I saw), etc etc.

Modes of transport were quite happening too. Other than the A330 Airbus, I took ferry, bullet train, motorcycle taxi, scooter, and rowboat. Luckily it was winter, so it was impossible to see sexy girls while I took the motorcycle taxi, if not the driver would have thought I was pressing a gun at his back... -_-" (nvm, adult joke) The small boat ride across the river was quite interesting, 50 cents RMB (around 10cents Singapore Dollar). And the boatman was talking to us about market economy... it was quite fun joining in the rowing, provided you don't screw up the direction or capsizing the boat.

Food... almost everyday I had alcohol during meals less breakfast. Chinese wine, whisky, beer... I'm turning alcoholic =P. Tried the water boatman, a very big water bug with a foul smell. Eek. Didn't bother to calculate its surface tension.

Environment... was quite bad. How to tell if the air is polluted? Dig your nose and you will find black substances. I don't mean your nostril hair.

People, stay tuned for my next entry, cos I'll be talking about earthquake... =S

Tag: china