robocup 2007

RoboCup 2007 is here! It will be held from July 1-10 at Georgia Tech, Atlanta. More details can be found here. Do check out the cool clips there.

Team RO-PE from NUS Mechanical Engineering will be taking part in the "Humanoid-Kid Robot Soccer League".

So who says Singapore soccer cannot make it?

thru euclid's window

Was reading Euclid's Window by Leonard Mlodinow. It's a very interesting maths book talking about the evolution of geometry "from parallel lines to hyperspace".

Do you know that the x-y coordinate system that we so take for granted, actually came from some hard work? And in those days, clever people usually get killed by a mob cos they are too clever. Aha, luckily I'm stupid.

The book mentioned a lot of science heroes along the time line, ranging from Pythagoras to Einstein, but the moment he started talking about Einstein I couldn't catch no ball anymore. Relativity is relatively difficult.

The one thing I find most interesting is this: given 2 locations in the northern hemisphere lying on the same latitude (ie the same east-west line), the shortest way to travel between them is not along east-west, but rather go north a bit, then go south a bit, a curve line along the "great circle" whose centre coincides with the centre of the Earth.

Try taking MRT from Jurong East to Raffles Place via Woodlands.

betting on craps

Apparently some members of ping.sg are betting on whether chillycraps will turn up at the first anniversary party. One of them went to the extent of wishing to have me locked up in jail so that he will win the bet. (I'll assume he's serious)

When you bet on horses, will you ask the horse whether it will win? Or will the horse tell you whether it will come in first? Before the result/outcome is out, everything is a variable.

By the way if you are wondering what are those 2 blue things doing on the right, I got nominated for 2 awards! Whoever nominated me, thanks! I don't think I deserve to be there though. Do check out the final nominees in these Blog Awards and vote for the one that you like most!

Seriously, if you bet on me, either you win or you lose.

(image leeched from brennan)

back to dirty business

Didn't touch my blog for a few days and it starts to feel weird.

Thanks for all the warm encouragement, be it on blogs, through msn or sms. They really gave me strength and courage. (ahem, although there was one insensitive nasty one also lah)

As for the investigation, it's still ongoing and there's really nothing much I can do now unless I want to make things worse. Anyway, not as if I'm going to appear on the frontpage like some tv station employee going to jail for drink driving.

aha~, back to the dirty business.

still under investigation

Hi people, I'm still under investigation. Went down to give a statement-of-witness as a witness-of-statement -_-". As the investigation is still ongoing, I won't say much.

What I can say is, yes I committed a breach of security. It's an offense. My intention could be totally innocent, but the implication and consequences can be quite different.

Most likely there will be a trial and I will be charged.
Although I'm still a kid, but I'll take it like a man.

People, I've hidden the comments. Thanks for your warm words!

under investigation

Dear readers,

I'm currently under investigation from Ministry of Defence (Mindef) with regards to my blog content.
I won't be updating for the time being.

chillycraps

bring your own (plastic) bag

I was plesantly surprised when my mother handed over a nice stack of plastic bags to the cashier when checking out at the supermarket.

Of course that was for putting our own stuffs and not intended for the next shopper, and those were the plastic bags from the same supermarket. Try using ShopNSave plastic bags at FairPrice.

You see, it isn't that difficult to keep and reuse plastic bags as long as they are still clean and in one piece. Beats buying those shopping bags right? Even if you don't reuse them at supermarket, you can always use them as trash bag. Makes life easier for the cleaners.

Actually Singapore is quite late when it comes to plastic bag reduction campaign. Hong Kong launched the BYOB (bring your own bag) campaign some 2 decades ago, while places like Taiwan charge you for each plastic bag request. It has sort of become a way of life in Taiwan, even big department stores like Shin Kong Mitsukoshi (新光三越) also don't issue plastic bags to shoppers, while Eslite Bookstore (誠品書店) uses nice paper bags for books. I was impressed.

Plastic bags are not all evil. C'mon, condoms are plastic bags! But... do people reuse that?

miser, not wiser

One not-very-nice trait of me is that I'm always reluctant to lend money and in the event that I do lend, I will remember for life until the person return the money borrowed.

Maybe I'm sick of people borrowing money, sick of people owing money, sick of loansharks, sick of financial company calling my house chasing for money that I didn't even borrow.

I settled someone's 5 digit loan at one go.

power took a trip

I was at FairPrice Xtra this morning when their power tripped. (NTUC didn't pay electricity bill?) It didn't take an electrician electrical engineer to realize it was only a partial power failure as there was still light outside the store within AMK Hub, and also the non-essential sections of the store (such as cosmetic section -_-"). 10am, time when the fruits and veggies are freshest and also when aunties flood the supermarket. The weighing machines were down and the cashiers were half-paralyzed.

My mind thought of the old provision store. Hanging milk powder can was the point-of-sale system of the day, and weighing scale didn't print sticker label. It had a scale.

What power trip? Who tripped?

i don't have big balls

Girls, if you like guys with big balls, just hop onboard a MRT and see which guy spread his legs widest. If you want to be accurate, bring along a protractor and measure the angle subtended by the legs.

Anyway don't have to consider me. I usually keep my two legs parallel to each other when seated on MRT. Sometimes my knees touch too.

molester reads einstein

molested: your hand touched my butt!
molester: your butt touched my hand!!

Was reading on Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity and was quick to apply it in real life.

Everything is relative.

open loop rockclimbing

I haven't touched the wall (or my climbing equipment) since 2007 started. Somehow the passion seems to have faded a bit. My mother and brother are like always asking me why don't I go climb.

Last night I had a not very nice MSN conversation with Nicholl.

Nich: Alex said you never jio him to climb.
Me: Why must I jio him? He can jio us also what.
Nich: He said he'll go if we jio him.
Me: Cannot lidat lah, everytime I jio.
Nich: Like that cannot climb already lor.

3 points I have to say: 1), why must Alex wait for people to ask him and not he ask people? 2), since Nicholl is informed, she might as well do the organising. Why push to me? 3), since everytime I organise, I might as well organise again, right?

But I'm petty. I'm getting a little tired of organising gatherings and outings. It's like, I'm not really the big-group kind of person, but I try to make it an effort to stay connected with old friends. Oh, so they also made an effort by waiting to be invited?

BTW, Alex still owe me S$20 for almost half a year already.

I got rejected 9 times in 6 weeks

Yes I got rejected 9 times within 6 weeks.

I mean my designs.

It's like everytime I let my boss see my design, I more or less expect it to be rejected, bounced back, shot down. The frustrating thing is, some of the parts he rejected actually appeared in earlier designs but he didn't reject them then. I mean had he pointed out those areas earlier, we could have saved much time and effort. My effort. My attitude starts to show. When I'm tired I show attitude.

I feel like a production line that only leads to a tray labelled "REJECT".

plagiarised craps

How would you feel if someone directly lifted your stuff word for word and post it on a forum, and only when some users questioned the content then the thread starter threw in your URL?

It's like when your idea works, your boss claims the credit; when it screws up, you take the blame.

(no I'm not going to post the link here and promote your forum)

my photo is in the netherlands

The 2-storey high tiger mosaic which contains my photo (no I'm not the tiger) is now on display at The Hague, The Netherlands during the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

First Switzerland, now Netherlands, my crappy face is going places for good cause!
(try finding me here)

wireless counter-strike on train

We always see kids playing PSP on buses or trains. Hongkongers are even more advanced, they are playing CS on their laptops on the train and shouting across like in LAN shop.

mating in the lab

ARGHH WHY CAN'T I MATE!!
Maybe cos it's not mating season?

--a loud frustrated chillycrappy voice was heard in the design lab.
Then I saw my boss's boss staring at me.

In SolidWorks, mating is a function to join 2 parts together in an assembly.

Well, not too far off from the "real" mating.

a few cells against a fuel cell

A while ago I received an email titled "The People Vs EDB Singapore". I can't be bothered about the ultimate motive of the sender, but as half an insider I have mixed feeling about the following paragraph found in the email:

2) Engineering giant Rolls-Royce and a consortium of Singapore companies, known as EnerTek Singapore Pte Ltd, have signed an agreement to invest S$164.7 million (US$100 million) to develop a commercially viable power system based on fuel cell technology. That was back in early 2005. It is already 2007. The growing evidence that we read is that fuel cell technology will not even take off but it will be biofuels or even plug in hybrids that will transform the transport industry.

First thing first, the people who are working on the fuel cell project, they are all around me in the design lab everyday. You can see the fruits very soon.

On one hand, it's quite true that biofuel is going to change the transport industry with the EU Biofuels Directive in place, on the other hand, fuel cell technology can achieve what biofuel can't. For a start, fuel cell is not limited by the Carnot cycle efficiency as in combustion engine. And with zero carbon emission, what else do you want? (biofuel still emits 50% of gasoline's carbon monoxide)

There must be a reason why giants like Rolls-Royce (and also Georgia Tech) are researching on fuel cells.

wear ear protection on mrt

I've always wondered, how come some MRT passengers can blast music on their earphone/headphone/handphone until someone seated one-carriage length away can hear the music?

Going by the way the geophone (ie, magnet and coil and membrane) assembly is orientated, the sound wave should travel towards the centre of the wearer's head instead of radiating outwards. It's almost a miracle why the person's eardrums aren't ruptured. Or maybe the sound travels through the listener's mostly-empty (aka brainless) skull and exits from the other ear hole. Now I understand what it means to be "go in one ear, come out from the other"

Even the slightest ringtone is annoying. To me, the only sweet music on a MRT is the motor sound.

breached dam in ntu

One thing that NTU beats NUS flat is that the people here are all experts in rushing to the bus. It's like whenever a bus arrives, everyone will just rush towards the entrance like water from a breached dam, be it at Boon Lay bus interchange or within NTU campus itself. I've seen people being pushed down the steps at the bus entrance.

Aww, NUS is losing its competitiveness. We are like so orderly.

blogging enlightenment

Suddenly I feel enlightened (in my usual weird way)!

I don't have to force myself to blog everyday, I don't have to care about number of daily visitors, I don't have to care about my blog's share value, I don't have to bother how many pongs I receive from ping.sg, I don't have to feel sourgrape over people who blog once or twice a week and still get thousands over hits per day (ouch), I don't have to care how some lousy blogs get famous (just like mine =P).

Most important of all, this is my entry of the day.

walking with dinosaur, trekking with engineers

This morning my brother was going trekking with his colleagues. He asked me and so I tagged along.

It's good to know what type of colleagues my brother works with everyday, and it's also a chance to see the side of him that's never seen. Of the 9 people who were there this morning, 8 were from NTU, (yaya, I'm the only NUS guy), and 7 of them are engineers, either material science or mechanical. All of them play with aircraft engines.

It's really 5 and half day work week as they talked about work-related stuffs. What engine what materials what boss.... at least there's a year 4 guy who just joined the company 2 weeks ago, he could talk non-work-related stuffs with me.

Nice trek, although the fracture gave me a bit of discomfort, but at least my fitness level was among the better few in the group.

And I suspect one of them is my brother's girlfriend.

lifting anti-shoplifting

How will you feel if you deliberately bring unpaid merchandise past the anti-shoplifting pedestals?

**This is not a test on the system**

Today after work I went to Jurong West Community Library (yah call me insane. Wait till I say I borrowed maths and engineering books) This was my first time visiting since the library has shifted out from Jurong Point to Frontier Community Club.

So after I have picked the books (yes, maths and engineering books) from the level 3 adult section, I couldn't find the borrowing stations. That's weird, since the door at level 3 leads out to the community club, with those intimidating anti-shoplifting pedestal guarding the door. Not wanting to sound the alarm, I went round and round level 3 hunting for the borrowing stations, until I looked at the directory and saw that "borrowing" is at level 1. Taking every step with caution, I went past the pedestal. No buzz.

They have like around 5 sets of those pedestals, and I guess only 1 set at the ground floor was on operation. Reminds me of dummy CCTV.

minority report

Was doing my internship report for the first 6 weeks. The required length for the report is 5-15 pages, any smart person would have just chunk out the bare minimum 5 pages. Stupid me wrote close to 10 pages, not counting the engineering drawings of my 8 designs, and a nice Harvard-style reference page.
-_-"

When I passed the report to my supervisor for clearance, he told me that I can't include the drawings cos of non-disclosure issue. Intellectual property huh? Ok, I'll just rewrite the report: "No comments. Project is classified"

I wonder when I go to the company toilet to poo, is the product also IP of the company?

i can't give you anything

Original UK #1 hit single in 1975 by The Stylistitcs.

Also check out the Stylistics + SMAP version. It's a nice mix of hi-lo pitch.
And of course, Takuya Kimura (木村拓哉)'s Gatsby Moving Rubber!

fart propulsion lab

How do you react when you are in the toilet and someone from the next cubicle makes a long series of loud fart?

FART BACK!
(doing that yesterday reminded me of the "farting competition" I had in my school library during Sec 1.)

Actually I have been thinking, is it possible to harness the energy in the foul gas? I believe the gas itself is combustible... oh well everyone can become Rocketeer if each of us wears Thunderpants. And when we fart, does it propel us forward? Hmm that will depend on the permissibility of our pants, if not it will be like placing a fan behind a sail.
Imagine our digestive system as a ram-jet engine.

By the way I do access information from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for my research.

overtime overture

Minus the security guard, I was like the last guy to leave the office building today. More than 1 hour late. And I ain't even a perm staff.

Other than the urge to spoil market (a project lead was shocked to see me running around, and said that I spoil market. His intern left like half an hour before official knock-off time), I stayed back because there's no dinner at home tonight and schedule is tight for my design. My supervisor wanted the design by this Friday but I managed to complete it today. I am anticipating some bounce-back, so just put in the safety factor of a few days so that I still have enough time to redesign the thing. Frontlog sounds better than backlog.

When you do OT, it can only mean 2 things: either you are damn hardworking, or you are just plain inefficient.

my shopping list

Although a bit slow, but the Great Singapore Sale is here! And before the 7% GST kicks in, I better get some shopping done.

Oldham coupling

linear bushing

tension springs

compression springs

Nuts (and bolts) sold separately.
Actually I'm ordering from Japan, so it's not affected by the Sale
-_-"

Argh and I'm rushing the design now!

comments on craps

(or craps on comments)

• Comments in my blog are like flowers on dung. More often than not, they are more meaningful than my original post. But without the crap, there's nothing to comment on. (although a lot of the times with crap there's also nothing to comment on =_=")
• Comments are what drive me on to blog.
• "I'm not going to blog again until I receive 10 comments on my previous entry!" whines one blogger. I thought of that before. Then I couldn't stand not blogging.
• Do you read blogs but don't leave comments?
• Do you write blogs but don't let others to comment?
• Do you leave comments on a blog but never return to see the blog author's reply? (pretty much like hit and run, but I do that too)
  

Oh, before flaming a crappy blog, try lighting up your excrement and see/smell what happens.

what chillycraps does at work

When I'm not running around with vernier caliper in hand, I'm always sitting in front of the 19 inch screen (or is it 21 inch?) playing CAD.

The thing is, you can pan the object around in all sorts of angles and direction, but somehow my head will twist in the same angle. ie, if I flip the object around, my head will be upside down too, theoretically.

Aargh, whatever.

read today like there's no tomorrow

It always amuses me to see the queue at MRT station for the free newspaper. The queue at Ang Mo Kio stretches all the way to the main road every morning, beating any 4D or donut queue flat.

Is the free newspaper really so important? There was once I saw this family of 4 on the train, each and every member of the family was reading a copy of the same newspaper. And back in office, almost everyone has a copy in front of his computer. I always thought Asians like to share. Yah, they share the same habit.

On one hand they are telling people to use less plastic bags, on the other hand they are printing newspaper like free, and it's really free. Oh, cos you can recycle newspaper but not plastic bag, so you can kill more trees? (you can reuse plastic bag though) Anyway most people just dump the free newspaper into the rubbish bin, not the recycle bin.

See? Everyone is doing something for the environment. Killing it that is.

roses are not red

Today someone at my workplace gave me a white rose.
It's the NTU people's last day of industrial attachment.

giggling girls on bus

And they were on another bus somemore.

I was sitting at the window seat on the upper deck of bus 179 leaving NTU, then there's this single decker bus traveling side by side with my bus. There were these few girls on the other bus, they glanced out and up at me, covered mouth, and giggled.... and it went on until both buses reached Boon Lay. I was like, what the... (luckily both buses were air-coned) My project mate sitting beside me saw it too.

I hope they didn't wet the seat, if not bus uncle will scold.

quote of the day

Chow: Hey today NTU result come out!
Meng: (pointing to Le) That's why Le is so sad.
Chow: Why sad?
Le: 'cos my girlfriend got GPA 5

the maximum grade point average (GPA) is 5.
I told Le to find a stupid girl.

shaving leg hair on train

...and yes, changing clothes too.

Lol, look at the other passengers' expression/reaction!
It was taken in a Hong Kong's MTR, think it's a short film =)

steamboat on study bench

Last night I had steamboat buffet with liau, hj and Alvin from my ME lecture gang.

With the exception of Alvin, the 3 of us are all doing internship. hj is having fun with Bangladeshi workers at the shipyard, while liau is putting his sperm count at risk with x-ray machine servicing. But something alarming was among the craps. The shipyard people told hj not to go back after graduating (not because he's not welcome, but...) and liau's boss also said engineers no future, especially the semicon and wafer industry. Now I wonder where do we go...

Oh the study bench at the eating place really made me feel like taking out tutorials from my bag (no lah, I don't have tutorials, but there's a scientific calculator in my bag though). And there's this lady at the other table eating ice cream and looking at me with those seductive eyes... -_-" eek.

all roads lead to ang mo kio

There are many ways to get from Boon Lay to Ang Mo Kio.

• If you want to look at office ladies, take the MRT via Raffles Place


• If you want to look at fat tree factory ladies, take the MRT via Woodlands


• If you want to look at school girls, take the bus and change at Bukit Timah


• If you want to look at yourself, take the taxi and look into the mirror

for the vip

For NUS Engineering students doing EG3602 Vacation Internship Programme:

Many people have been asking me about VIP report. (please do I really look like I'm faculty staff?) Ok since some people read blogs more than they check NUS webpage, might as well say it here.

For those who started their internship on 7 May, this week should be week 5 for you. By the end of week 7, we are supposed to submit the first report. In a crabshell basically we have to crap 5-15 pages, get our supervisor's signature, scan it, and submit through the VIP website.

More details can be found here.

nick of time

Recently got another new nickname from workplace. Sounds fun to list down all my nicknames in chronological order~

ah gông: when I was a kid, some family friends made that "gong" sound when playing peek-a-poo with me.

ultraman: in primary school, cos I used to like ultraman

hangman: secondary school time, from my real name. My Sec 1/2 form teacher still calls me that in our email exchange.

freak 2: there was freak 1 in Sec 4.

lil hang: by Nicole. "siu" can mean small or little in Cantonese.

hunk: by my JC classmates. Also from my real name. No connection with my physical look.

聋的传人: my brother always says I can't listen.

chao chee bye: ermm I guess a lot of people got called by this also. Army time. The sergeant major liked to stress the first word with a pause.

超人: by my unit chief clerk. She thought I could handle all nasty cases.

lame 仔: by the old birds in the branch during army time. Cracking lame jokes once in a while...

小恆: by Alvin Goh during army. This is NOT my real name. Sometimes stupid Alex joins in too.

chillycraps: unknown. short form is chilly or cc. chilly sounds more cute.

scary: by my project mates in SIMTech. Just because I made fun of a Terry.

civil engineered homemade latte

(take out fresh milk)
then put it in a cup..

put into microwave for 30-40 seconds..

take it out.. stir..

then put in again for one min..

after which.. just add the coffee powder in..

one or two teaspoons..

depend on how strong u want it to be..

sugar.. same thing lor..

depends on how sweet..

stir.. and u're done!

by DJ Niwde from UNSW Civil Engineering
(not the close-shop UNSWAsia)

today in history

On 4th June 1989, what started as peaceful sit-in crying for democracy in China at the Tiananmen Square by students ended as a bloody massacre when the People's Liberation Army rolled in.

The estimated toll was 3000.

Some years later, a particular Mr Lee from Singapore said that the Chinese government did the right thing.

When you use it to gain power, you call it a revolution;
When others use it to threaten your power, you call it a revolt.

re-invent the motor

My research is getting more "interesting".

Now they want me to invent a linear motor that has 2 degrees of freedom.
Have to play with Lorentz's Law. Any suggestion?

Would it be easier to re-invent the wheel?
(that sushi looking thingie is a linear motor -_-")

EDIT: Thanks for the reply. My boss has decided the task is too advanced for my level.
Anyway if you are interested, have a look at Philips Applied Technologies' Planar Maglev.

important laws of physics

Lorenz's Law of Mechanical Repair
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.

Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Kovac's Conundrum:
When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged tone.

Cannon's Karmic Law:
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.

O'brien's Variation Law:
If you change queues, the one you have left will start to move faster than the one you are in now.

Bell's Theorem:
When the body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Ruby's Principle Of Close Encounters:
The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

Willoughby's Law:
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

Zadra's Law Of Biomechanics:
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Breda's Rule:
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

Owen's Law:
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold

finished watching das boot

Just finished watching a famous German movie Das Boot.

It's about a German U-boat U-96 near the end of World War 2. Its task was to patrol the North Atlantic and hunt down Allied convoys sailing to Britain. (Battle of North Atlantic) It somehow feels like playing Silent Hunter 3 on my computer, just that in the computer game I didn't set fuel limit and probably got sunk many times.

There are a lot of meanings behind the movie. For example the Captain of U-96 seemed to be anti-Nazi. (or even anti-government) But as a good soldier, he carried out his missions as ordered, even taking on the suicidal mission to Gibraltar which was the nest of British naval power in the Mediterranean. The Chief Engineer was someone to watch too, although he had no news of his wife back in Germany, with professionalism he performed miracles in repairing the sunk U-96 at Gibraltar. The biggest irony of it all, U-96 made it back to home port and to be sunk right at the moment by enemy air raid.

Sigh, really sad movie that still got me emotional.

wear safety shoes at home

People pay so much attention in work safety, they neglect home safety.

Yesterday I was hanging my wok when it landed on my toe. Imagine the solid metal falling sidewards under acceleration of 9.81 m/s² and landing on the small area of my big toe, missing the nail by a few microns... It bled under the skin. Eek.

Next time must wear safety shoes in the kitchen.

ape can't get into nus

Oooo I think I read wrongly, should be ABE and not APE!

Anyway, yeah about the recent article in the Straits Times about this father complaining that his kid of A,B,E (fine, plus a C for General Paper if he likes it) can't get into local universities. Then he goes on to talk about what kinship and citizenship that sort.... so does that mean that if he is a Singapore citizen, everytime he queues up for 4D or TOTO he is going to win money?

As someone who managed to squeeze into a local university and a good degree programme, I must say our cruel education system is not as simple as queueing up for char kway teow or lottery. You think you are good, but there are better ones out there. Check and balance are essential to maintain the quality of grads here. Just look at Hong Kong, slightly bigger than little red dot and they have like 7 government-funded universities and grads are like everywhere on the street.

I think I know how he feels. I've seen my brother broke down when he couldn't get into local universities the first time round. But he came back the second round and now he's an engineer whom I respect.

hardworking also get blamed

At my workplace I think I'm the spoil-market of all the interns: I report to work at 8:30am and leave at 6pm. Some interns come at 9:30am and leave at 5pm.
-_-" (btw the contract says 8:30 to 6)

Remember the shh-shh guy? Thursday was holiday right? So on Wednesday he started shh-shhing and humping the back of my chair in office and suggested we go off at 5:30pm. I ignored him and continued working on my SolidWorks. So when it was almost 6pm I asked him if he wanted to go off, then he started grumbling say what he was waiting for me and stuff. The annoying thing he said was "I dunno what were you doing lor, drag the thing move here move there" (he was referring to me working on SolidWorks) So I turned on my sarcasm mode and replied "if you know what I was doing, then they wouldn't need me here liao lor."

I mean if he wanted to go off early he could have just gone early by himself right? Want to "break law" also don't dare to "break" alone...