mrt - morons ride train

Other than doing pole-dance, some commuters really can do other amusing things in the MRT.

Some passengers just like to spread their legs wide wide while sitting. Are they giving birth or are they following what's shown in sex education clips? And those who spread their legs are usually males. Do males need to spread legs?

Others are better still, they can stick their legs to over half the width of the train. There was once I saw this man sticking his legs to in between the feet of a standing passenger. (didn't check if he had installed a camera on his shoes) And of course the other reason for slouching is purely mathematical...

Then some just like to cross their legs while others can spread open their newspaper (not legs this time) to in front of the passenger beside him/her. So cramped already still want to act seh. And you know what's the most ridiculous thing? Someone's fat butt/thigh crossed the boundary and crushed my MP3 player's screen.

Not only do people ride train, I've seen people riding each other while riding the train. Once I saw a guy really onto the girl at the 2-seater, another time was a girl on a guy... eek and those were during peak hours!

Now we know there are many positions available at SMRT Corporation Ltd.

EDIT: something interesting happened in Hong Kong's train...

shh-shh for coffee break

There's this intern in my office, everytime he wants to ask me to go coffee break with him, he would try to attract my attention by making that "shh-shh" sound. I ignore him everytime.

You know it's like calling out to dogs. Am I supposed to feel insulted? No, cos I refuse to acknowledge him. Want to ask someone to slack with you, just ask properly lah. There was once he made that "shh-shh" sound and another engineer thought he was calling him, after that few seconds of embarrassment the guy resumed to shh-ing again.

Not only that, he likes to stand behind me and look at my email screen, then I would just alt-tab to the boring solidworks screen (he's from NUS EE3, knows nuts about solid modelling). I'm sorry, no kinky mails in my inbox.

Respecting others is to respect yourself.

resultant

For those who are so eager to know my exam result, it's here. Or you want the university administration to send my result to your home address?

GEK1520 Understanding the Universe B
MA3501 Mathematical Methods in Engineering B-
ME2101 Fundamentals Of Mechanical Design B+
ME2114 Mechanics Of Materials II B-
ME2135 Fluid Mechanics II B-
ME2142 Feedback Control Systems C

CAP: 3.4

If you feel that my heroic self-sacrificial act of staying at the bottom has raise your grades up, you can always sing "you raise me up" in front of me.

Okay lah, it's not fantastic result, the CAP has taken a little dip, but for someone who was expecting some failures, it's a heavy load lifted. Actually I deserve worse. Expected myself to have done badly because this semester I have been blogging like I never blogged before (if you are so free you can count my number of posts), and at the forum side I was promoted... so now I'm like moderating 9 boards (although there are more than 9 moderators under me, but...).

Conservation of energy: you gain some, you lose some. But is the gain useful?

quote of the day

wah MC king!

a PhD candidate at my workplace exclaimed after knowing I took 23 MC (modular credits, not medical certificates -_-") last semester, and that my lowest number of MC per semester was 19. Isn't that the norm for engineering fac?

Like I said, 6 modules really felt like 6 modules last semester. But looking at the recommended semester schedule, the hardest part/bottleneck/watershed/whatever-you-want-to-call-it has passed, so I can forsee things will be better from next semester onwards. Somemore specialization will kick in in semester 6 so we will be able to choose our favourite modules.

Things look bright.

matlab & simulink day'07

For those maths type, electrical type and control freaks engineers, MATLAB & Simulink Day'07 is here.

Date: 15th June 2007
Time: 9:30am - 4:40pm
Venue: Biopolis@matrix

Details can be found here.

ps4 is out

or is it PS x 4?

quote after result day

liau: Hi can ask you how much you get for feedback? I got a b.
siu hang: C.
liau: Ok. Sorry. Think a lot of people did better for feedback

To be honest I wasn't very pleased with the SMS exchange. Firstly, I don't like to compare grades. Secondly, if he had said "a lot of people did worse than you", maybe I would feel better. C'mon it's a bell curve! If I sit at the mean, there are always people to my left and to my right.

But I ain't angry at him, cos I have known him for more than 5 years. He meant no harm I'm sure.

Oopz did I just disclose his grade?

no race queen

After the bitching, it's time for some fun moments for Legs & Paddles 2007 (LNP2007).

So I was stationed right at the far riverbank opposite Clarke Quay. In the morning there was some photoshooting going on with a girl posing on the bridge and a swarm of photographers around her. She was like doing all sorts of seductive postures like lying on the bridge or hugging the lamppost... then when the male competitors came their eyes were glued to the model, all heads 45 degrees right. -_-" I wonder did their legs go numb...

The runners in the morning were more fun. We were like crapping and joking with one another, things like bargaining for shorter distance... got runner hugged me, got runner pat me, and when I cheered them on some would return friendly gestures. One asked me where's the water point which was at the next bridge, then he said he couldn't wait already and ran into 7-Eleven and came out with 100 Plus. -_-"

Oh, a lot of tourists asked me for direction! The foreigners were quite interested in the race and asked me about the distance, the conduct of the race and so on. And smartass me brought along a field-chair, and attracted quite a lot of attention cos I was sitting in the middle of nowhere guiding traffic.

I think had I imitated a chimp and started dancing there, people would toss money to me.

from a race official

Went to help out at Legs & Paddles 2007 (LNP2007) today.

I'm not going to slam NUS Canoeing Sub Club, afterall every organization may make mistakes, but I just wish to share some areas of improvement.

Everything started late. Imagine we were deploying the road marshallers halfway when the first runner caught up, and the road marshallers had to run in front of the competitors. Lunch was late, I had mine at 2:30pm. Ended late, I only left at like 7:30pm when the event was supposed to end at 5:30pm.

There was clearly a shortage of manpower. I didn't go to the toilet for 12 hours because my station was critical and noone was available to stand in. We couldn't even refill our water. Some volunteers also left early, and the vacuum wasn't filled. Some runners ran all the way to Robinson Quay when they were supposed to U turn at Clarke Quay. I had competitors coming to me saying they ran 3 rounds instead of 2 because there were no marshallers guiding them. One of them was even crying, while a few scolded me like free when I clearly didn't and couldn't do anything wrong. I could have just left my station early and let the station behind me get the scoldings.

Talking about abuse, a female marshaller had verbal abuses just because the logistic people delivered the water container late and the first few runners had no water at the designated water point. The poor girl had to note down tag numbers on a clipboard, had to fill cups with water, had to pick up the used cups on the ground, and the organiser refused to resupply paper cups. One of the worst things that can happen to a volunteer is to be scolded, unreasonably.

On the part about people running 3 laps instead of 2, did the organiser brief the competitors properly or not? And the competitors, did you study the routes before coming? This is not like climbing competitions where you don't know the routes beforehand, in this case the map was emailed to you! So you would happily run 42km instead of 10km if noone stopped you?

Enough of bitching, maybe I'll post the funny stuffs during the race another time.

matlab girl

A: Which type of girl do you like?
B: She must know how to use MATLAB.
conversation between 2 NTU Electrical Electronic Engineering students

Had dinner with 4 electrical guys (3 NTU + 1 NUS) at Vivo City last night. Quite a lot of craps. Things like ordering dog meat at White Dog Cafe, or mixing up Vietnamese sausage with Viennese sausage (and one of the NTU guy is a Vietnamese. He has Vietnamese "sausage" =P) Then we checked out the toy stores and bought some toys...

Like I always say, engineers are cool.

open door policy

Just now when I went to the toilet I saw this cubicle with opened door, and a man standing inside with pants all the way down, and he was pulling the toilet roll...

I have no idea what was he doing, wiping his ass or wiping something else, but.. eek, what's with the research scientist here?!?!

the analog movement

Ever wonder what's the difference between digital and analog?

For analog signal you basically get smooth curves, whereas for digital signal you will have rectangular curves in steps.

To put it simpler, it's like a girl asking a guy whether he likes her or not and she demands the answer to be either a "yes" or "no" (that's why girls like digital), whereas a guy will give you that "to a certain extent" crap.

As for engineers, we have the DAC: Digital-to-analog converter. Now we can have the kind of answer we want.

girl and vibrator advertisement

If you check out the 3rd page of Today's TODAY newspaper, there's this OSIM advertisement of its iPen massage pen.

So the engineers at my workplace were very interested in the product, discussing on its actuator and battery and stuff. Some even suggested buying one and dismantling it to see its parts.

Then one engineer said, "There must be a reason why they put a girl in their vibrator advertisement"

Vibrator and massage pen are different lah. (although they are similar in working principle)

legs and paddles 2007

What has legs and paddles? CRAB!

Join chillycraps at Legs and Paddles 2007 this Sunday (27 May) at Singapore River.

Registration ends today. -_-"

remote child control

There's this engineer at my workplace who likes to call home to check on his kids, to see whether they are doing their homework and stuff. So today I overheard this:

Go and stand on the chair. Don't come down until the next time I call back.

I wonder if he forgot to call back, his poor kid would be standing until he reaches home... But then again, do you think his kid would be so obedient?

french crack

Was cooking rice with the transparent Arcuisine pot the other day, then suddenly it cracked. -_-" I swear I didn't add water in the midst of heating the pot! (some of you may have tried adding cold water to hot test tube =P)

The pot was made in France and I believe it was tempered glass (Pyrex? I wonder what has it got to do with Durex), so the fragments weren't really sharp. Oh, and the cut was smooth too. But still, my rice was gone!

I suspect it was the condensed water dripping back to the heated pot, then creating irregular thermal expansion and contration and all kinds of reaction...

That will need a Material Science guy to explain.

international museum day 2007

In 1978, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) designated 18 May of every year as the International Museum Day (IMD) in an effort to heighten public's awareness of the important role that museums play in the community. This year's theme is "Museums and Universal Heritage"

Somehow the Singapore's version of IMD'07 is "Museum Alive". Got a feeling it is borrowing some ideas from a particular movie. I kind of find local museums a bit too commercialised, even if they are under National Heritage Board.

I used to be quite a hardcore museum lover. I'll rather spend on museum ticket than movie ticket. Before the renovation I was a regular volunteer with the then Singapore History Museum, doing things like tour-guiding, curatorial, conducting workshop, and events such as Museum Fest and the Millennium party. (maybe someday I can show you some "artefacts" including newspaper interview =)) And you can guess who came out with the name for Young Historians Club =)

Now the National Museum of Singapore is a totally new style. Kind of miss the old days. (and I bet you can remember the old National Library)

quote of the day

那个machine是gay
(that machine is gay)

the engineers were deciding on the colours of the warning lights on a machine, then someone suggested rainbow colour.

horsing around

I actually watched the live telecast of the Singapore Airlines International Cup last night. It's amazing that the horse only had to win one lap to pocket $3 million.

It was quite exciting, my mother and I were sitting in front of the TV and shouting and cheering for our favourite numbers. We didn't place any bet though. It kind of brought back some childhood memories. I remember when I was a kid whenever I visited my grandfather's place during weekends, he would be glued to the boombox which was broadcasting the horse race live. And he cheered the horse from his home. Then in between races he would make his way downstairs to the jockey club outlet to place his bet for the next race...

Actually you can learn something from horse races: Don't run too fast at the beginning, leave some energy to the last. But don't run too slow at the beginning, if not you will have a hard time catching up.

wife 1.0 technical support

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 . I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources.

In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system activities, such as Poker Night 10.3, Football 5.0, Going To The Pub 7.5, and Softball 3.6

I can't seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my other favorite applications. I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0 , but the uninstall doesn't work on Wife 1.0.

Please help!

Thanks,
Troubled User.....

_____________________
REPLY:
Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men often complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING!!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0 . It is impossible to uninstall, or purge, the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings: Alimony-Child Support . I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application Yes Dear 2.7 to alleviate your program problems.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE! because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.

Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance! Wife 1.0 does come with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0, Cook It 1.5, and Do Bills 4.2

However, be very careful how you use these programs . Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5 Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3 . This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system!

Best of luck,
Tech Support

male + female = 10

I've always got this feeling that ugly guys go with pretty girls, and handsome guys go with ugly girls. Maybe my observation is just inaccurate.

Yesterday I heard a new theory while talking crap in the laboratory. The scores of the guy and the girl add up to 10. ie, if the guy's look scores 9, then the girl must be scoring 1, with 10 having best look and 1 being worst. Vice versa, if the guy scores 1, then the girl will be a gorgeous 9. Of course, you can have different combinations such as an average looking 5-pointer guy with a 5-pointer girl.

10+0=10. Now you know why I'm single?

real densha otoko

Since I started my internship at NTU, I have been taking MRT everyday and I realised I have transformed into Densha Otoko myself. No drunkard yet but lotsa office ladies. (I still like that story a lot)

A reader gave me an interesting link to a Japanese show which did a little experiment to see how otakus (geeks? nerds?) react when they see girls in distress. The finding? 69% of the otakus actually stood up to save the harassed girl!

part 1

part 2

To be honest, I ain't sure if I have that courage to offer help.

spider dog

"spiderman, spiderman..."

Meets SPI-DOG, the latest version of I-dog from toy-maker Hasbro. Comes in original red and Venomised black version.

Not sure if it shoots spider web while playing MP3 or not...

table for six

A little glimpse of what I have designed so far.

This is my first serious design of the active vibration isolator module. Basically it's made up of 2 triangular plates, 6 compression springs, an accelerometer and a voice coil actuator. I actually borrowed the idea from the Stewart Platform which is used for precision stuffs such as NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. The real thing has 6 degrees of freedom.

The fake thing (ie, my design) got shot down on the screen. Second and third designs coming up soon.

them n'us

we have joinus, alumnus

and anus.

legal bullshitting

吹牛不犯法
(blow cow bullshitting is not illegal)
--favourite line from the Chinese engineers in my workplace

Last Friday they were having a project presentation for my project, then the PhDs started debating on the system. One even started his case from f=ma. That was like so cool, they made it sound as if they were debating those Arts and Social Sciences thingy.

Yesterday I left my SolidWorks open while going to toilet, and when I returned I saw the Group Manager (ie, my boss's boss) standing at my place and studying my screen. That's it, he started asking me why I design the structure in such a way and blah blah blah...

I crapped my way through.

engineering dinner

Last Wednesday
I had dinner at East Coast with 2 guys from NTU Engineering: Janan from Aerospace Engineering and SQ from Electrical Electronic Engineering. It's great to meet up with old friends and I had a nice little walk along East Coast Park with Janan grumbling about his model aeroplane project.

Last night
I had dinner at Pitstop with 3 from NUS Engineering: Kimmy from Mechanical Engineering, guang from Bioengineering and OTC from Electrical Engineering. We had great time with the games and vandalizing each other's arms cos the wall ran out of space!

Last week
A lady from Misumi wanted to have dinner with a few engineers from my workplace. She suggested Swissotel and Raffles Hotel which our engineer thought are too expensive. Then another engineer said "go Hotel 81 lah, very cheap!"
Everyone screamed at him.

tigers in the mud

Just finished reading the book Tigers in the Mud by Otto Carius.

The author was an ace tank commander of the German army during World War II, having destroyed more than 150 enemy tanks and was the youngest soldier to be awarded the "Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves" (a very prestigious award in the German military)

In the book Carius talks about his time with the 502nd Heavy Panzer Battalion, operating the famous Tiger tanks against the Russians in the Eastern front and later the Americans in the West. Although some parts may get a bit technical, but it's interesting to see how a commander juggled between superiors above and subordinates below. And the author feels that the German soldiers have been unjustly judged even by the German people after the war.

Famous Japanese artist Miyazaki has a manga of the same story "泥まみれの虎". Quite cute drawings =)

quote of the day

I was looking up for couplings from the parts catalogue when MG from NUS year 3 Electrical Engineering asked me...

MG: what is a couple?
SH: attached liao then become couple lor.

Then he gave me the sian face.

hiya ping.sg, i'm back

erm... something happened and silly/dumb/impulsive/weak me haven't ping my entries for quite a few days, so there are a few days worth of entries not pinged. (oh well you can always read them like now) Thanks for those encouraging words from my dear friends! For those who feel cheated/misled by all my blog entries, too bad for you. You just dunno how shiok it is to crap.


Whether you like Tresca or von Mises, I'm not going to yield that easily.

misleading press

I'm not sure if it's me reading too much into the news, but I'm not very pleased with the local news media.

Recently when reporting the crash in Taiwan, the local newspaper seem to emphasize on the Taiwanese F-5F fighter jet being 30 years old. Trying to blame them for using antique? Why didn't the paper say our Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) uses the similar F-5S/T as frontline interceptor and ours are about the same age as the Taiwanese? Singapore Press Holding really knows how to select what to write (and what not to write).

It's like your own laundry stick is dripping wet then you still say other people's laundry is dripping.

infinite settling time

Dunno why recently my mood is quite unstable. Maybe looking at vibration too much.

Let me just say that I'm easy target for blog bullies.

When will I ever reach steady state???

formula one in singapore

Ok so Formula 1 racing is coming to Singapore. Just imagine the Central Business District transformed into race track at night. But before that, the authority must prepare toilets... (that's MotoGP anyway)

Do you know that actually Macau has Grand Prix circuit in the urban area? It's held every November, just that it's F3 and not F1. If you can't wait for F1 to come to Singapore, maybe you can see Macau's. I have seen the live telecast before and it's really cool to see them racing under bamboo laundry poles.