how engineering students wave

This is how engineering students wave...


I was supposed to wave back with a cosine waveform.

writing engineering paper

I'm like stuck here writing a 10-12 page long engineering term paper. The topic: Combined Cycle Power Generation.

People always have this wrong perception that since I blog, I should be good at writing essays. Wrong! If I'm writing rubbish, maybe, but if you are trying hard to explain how to cook satay and use the smoke to boil water and then use the steam to generate electricity, that's another story.

Engineering concepts and applications are already so well documented, how much of your own input can you have? Stick your finger into the socket and record down how it feels? I am having trouble reaching the minimum 10 pages requirement, so what I am doing is to put extra large photos and schematics to fill the space. 5 pages of pictures and still short of 5 pages.

Any suggestion?

simple harmonic passenger

I was sitting at the window seat of the bus, and right (it was left) beside me a JC kid was sitting at the aisle seat. He soon fell asleep and was rocking left and right in a simple harmonic motion.

Me being evil and couldn't stand the kid's shoulder hitting against mine, I hit him back with my shoulder and that produced a forced oscillation. My timing was so accurate, the kid's oscillation almost reached resonance and his amplitude increased, resulting in him hitting me back harder than the unexcited state earlier on.

Is "equal and opposite force" another term for "retribution"?

accountability at home

I remember when I was small, whenever I went over to friend's house, I had to write down the friend's name and home telephone number and leave it with my mother; whenever I went camping, I had to write down the teacher-in-charge's handphone number or the school number and paste it on the fridge.

It's only yesterday when I realized its importance.

So I was cooking dinner and waiting for everyone to come home. Normally my elder brother would reach home latest by 7pm if he is coming back for dinner. But last night, we waited and waited and he hadn't come home. I smsed him, no reply. I called him, unreachable.

All kinds of horrible thoughts crossed my mind. All the what-ifs. Things like supporting family and stuff... I almost overturned his drawer searching for his friends' contact numbers.

He reached home at 8pm. He got some scolding from me. He actually went to meet up with an insurance agent -_-"

better than oakley

The other day I was at the hardware store when I saw these safety eyewears.

They are like... cool! At S$20, not only do they look cool, they can protect your eyes from foreign objects (erm, foreign doesn't mean imported) while you are working on your workpiece or walking through a factory. Oakley can protect you from.. UV rays?

Blue collar workers can look stylo too. Now, why am I myopic?

cathay pacific B777 very low fly-by

Civil aviation fans are going to love this.

On 30 January, Cathay Pacific took delivery of its Boeing 777-300ER from Boeing's Seattle plant, and the pilot Captain Ian Wilkinson gave the passengers (including his boss) a little joyride -- a fly-by 10m above the runway!

The people on the ground cheered on, celebration was held after the landing at Hong Kong, but the pilot was sacked after the footage became public.

I visited a professional pilots forum and there were divided views on it. Let's say Captain Ian Wilkinson was the Chief Pilot of Cathay Pacific's 777 fleet.

photos by Liem Bahneman

business girls' proposal

Met up with my business consultants and guess what, they suggested me to improve my image by having a complete overhaul makeover... -_-"

I give the least attention to the aesthetic aspect of any engineering design.

So start from the head, they say I should style my hair. But I like my hair short and neat. If not because of my mother's objection, I would have either skin head or crew cut.
Next, spectacles. Change to contact lens? Eew.
Clothes, T-shirt is the best. Don't expect me to wear polo tee and then flip up the collar like Eric Cantona of the 20th Century. He's the only guy who looks cool with flipped collar.
Pants, I like my berms and 3/4. Doesn't hinder my movement. I can't stand jeans.
Footwear, love my Teva and Keen. Can't expect me to get foot-rot cos I didn't dry my feet properly after swimming right?

And so, the proposal they suggested has been rejected. You can't expect a crab to change to a prawn. Even if I don't have a style, that's my style.

my fishballs from england

Woohoo, my toys from England have arrived!

Let's say part of the mechanical component looks like a stick of curry fishballs. Cannot find at fishball stall ok, must import.

And I was carrying close to 10kg of curry fishballs home this morning... now I don't smell fishy, I smell metallic.

good year or bad year

Do you guys read those Chinese zodiac review and stuff? And do you guys believe in them?

I refuse to believe in them, but ironically I get affected when those reviews say not so nice things about me this year. Like what in rat year your wealth will blah blah blah or your romance will blah blah blah that sort.

Last year they said until my year like very wonderful like that, then it ended up so shitty. This year they say my year is so shitty, I dunno what's going to happen.

Aha, maybe last year it could have been worse, and maybe this year even it is shitty, it is still heavenly shitty.

Whatever.

fishing in hdb block

Just now my mother was in the kitchen when she saw someone else's shorts dangling on our bamboo pole holder. Just as we were deciding to push the shorts over and let gravity take care of it, a fishing line + hook was lowered from above...

So the amused me and my mother watched the hook trying to catch the shorts... up down up down... and finally it caught! No bait required.

I so wanted to take a pair of scissors and cut the fishing line.. muhahaha. I'll just say the fish got loose and swim away~

20 dollar circuit problem continued

Remember the 20 dollar circuit problem? Last Friday I tried to bug Prof Liew for the answer, but he told us to wait for 2 more weeks. Ok if you can't bug him for solution, at least bug him for clues.

Here's the clues: you are not supposed to build/add anything across the boxes. ie, everything has to be done inside the boxes. And the AC source is important, had it been a DC source it would be a totally different solution.
Hoho I can solve the problem already. Think of 8 diodes.

EDIT: someone did it with 6 diodes, kudos to you!

massive climbing session

Yesterday's climbing was massive. When I saw our group my jaws really dropped. We had more than a dozen people which includes a gang of UNSW girls, a gang of NTU girls, some cousins, and of course some guys (but that's not important) Like Bernard said, the whole village was our people at SAFRA Yishun yesterday.

Only climbed twice as most of the time I was belaying others or fooling around. Edwin's 12 years old cousin was such source of entertainment =P And I became his other cousin Edmund's guardian =P

And Alex really hasn't climbed for a long time. He was trying to belay me with an unlocked carabiner. -_-"

tetra classic

My biggest reward from the career fair was from Sweden: the Arla UHT milk in Tetra Classic package!

This small tetrahedral contains 25ml of milk, and thanks to the special technology from Tetra Pak, this little package can keep its contents at room temperature for months!

I brought it home in my bulky backpack and it survived the journey. Had it leaked, I would have left behind a milky way.

after career fair

Went to the NUS Career Fair yesterday.

For me it's quite straight-forward. I only visited booths of engineering firms. Those grow money type I didn't even give a hoot. So there I was, acting smart, throwing in terms at the engineers, impressing others, embarrassing myself, etc etc. I would say, mechanical engineers are needed anywhere, or as one HR personnel put it, "we are hungry for mechanical engineers".

I was trying to probe for more information, so at one booth I lied a bit and pretend to be year 4 (yeah yeah, I lied.) Then honest yuankang beside me had to expose me. Wat the...

Next time go career fair cannot go with honest people.

quote of the day

(on a crowded bus 151)

chow: 站在门囗那边那个人很像你呢
(the person standing near the exit looks like you)
xiao bai: 那个是我哥哥喇!
(that's my brother lah!)

cpf = certain people first

Yesterday I was at CPF Bishan Service Centre settling some stuff for my father.

The way they do things is like this: you queue up at the information counter. If they can solve your problem, they solve your problem; if they can’t, they give you a queue number and you wait for your turn to go into the cubicles.

Soon the queue at the information counter got longer, such that the sliding glass door can giap the last person’s butt. Then an auntie in the last half of the queue made noise and said what she wanted a queue number and stuff. So a staff gave her a queue number and she happily went to wait for her turn at the sofa. Then a man, apparently queuing in front of that abovementioned auntie but still quite far behind in the queue, made noise too. He raised his voice and questioned the staff for giving special treatment to that auntie. The staff brought him to one side (I heard him saying “why are you mad at me”. But then, if not mad at him, mad at who? The auntie?), then I dunno what they said, and the man stormed off screaming he will complain to headquarters.

Me in the queue exchanged a few smile with the 2 aunties queuing in front of me. C’mon, we were obediently and patiently queuing for our turn without making a noise.

And when it was my turn, I let the auntie behind me cut my queue. She said she doesn’t know English. There was only 1 Chinese counter staff.

back door entry the sbs transit way

Today is the 15th day of Chinese New Year, and many people went to temples.

I was at the bus stop and saw this bus 130 filled to the brink. This service passes by Bright Hill (where Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery is located) , and the bus stop I was at is only the second stop from the interchange!

Some people wanted to board the bus but it was already filled to the brink. So what did the driver do? He asked them to tap their ez-link card at the front door, and told them to board the bus from the back door. It worked.

Now come to think of it, if the people could squeeze onboard from the backdoor, didn't it show that the passengers already in the bus didn't shift in to the back of the bus?

20 dollar circuit problem

During lecture yesterday Prof Liew gave us this fun question.
You have a 50Hz AC power supply, lamps LA and LB, push buttons A and B. When button A is pressed, lamp LA lights up. When it is released, LA goes off. When button B is pressed, lamp LB lights up. When it is released, LB goes off. When both A and B are pressed, both LA and LB lights up. When A and B are released, both LA and LB goes off. The circuit inside each box is unknown. Now find the unknown.

The solution is under $20, so you can forget about some high tech remote control electromagnetic thingie...

(the question was directed at the electrical engineering students, so don't feel bad if you can't solve it)

engineering ethics

On one hand we are learning engineering ethics in lecture, on the other hand we have a real life example coming at us.

My highly professional project groupmates were talking to some supplier and guess what the boss suggested? Since we have a budget from the university, he suggested us to over-quote the price and then we share the extra money between him and us.

This is like... corruption!

Like other ethics questions, there is no right or wrong answer. So, if I put you in such scenario, what will you do?
(burn down the factory and take the money)

nus career fair 2008

It's time of the year for Career Fair again!

The NUS Career Fair will be held from 21 to 22 February (ie tomorrow and Friday) at MPSH 1 and 2. Tickets are not sold at SISTIC outlets.

I think even if you are not graduating this year, it is still good to visit the career fair and take a look. Update yourself on the job market, the trend, the requirement, network with the people, etc. You can always make use of your remaining semesters to take relevant modules (which I think is important in engineering context, your technical electives) And for those who wants to do internship this holiday, this is your chance!

I just want the free goodie bags.

quote of the day

nicholas: (looking sleepy) did he say "liquid anus"?
siu hang: liquid containers!!

-- during ME4212 Mechanics of Thin-Walled Structures lecture

i got laser-guided-bombed

During EG2401 Engineering Professionalism lecture today, the lecturer shined a laser beam at me and ask me to answer her question. After the lecture arzhou was laughing non-stop at me... -_-" He just found it funny.

From the receiving end, let me say that shining a laser pointer at a student is not an effective way to call him/her. It's not like shining a torchlight, a laser beam is narrow. Even if the lecturer was shining it onto my white shirt, I wouldn't have noticed it unless I lower my head and look at my own shirt. What for during a lecture do I look at my own shirt!? So now you know, those scenes in movies where someone realized he was being aimed left right centre, it's exaggerated.

Pointing at the eyes is a no-no, although it can catch the target's attention. Being a class 2 laser product, the beam from a laser pointer can still damage your retina. I hate it when lecturers sweep their laser pointer across the lecture theatre like spraying a machine gun.

Oh and in the military, special forces point laser beam at the target to guide the air strike.

I walked out of the lecture theatre in one piece.

break your lock then sell you their lock

This is what happened to my friend, and I think I should caution more people about it.

My friend's mother was alone at home when 4 men came knocking on the door and selling locks for the windows. To demonstrate how weak the original locks were, the men took out a crowbar and break open the sliding windows. -_-# Hello, with a crowbar you can almost break anything! Now imagine this picture: 4 men, crowbar, 1 woman in the house.

The first thing that came to my mind was to ask for the men's contact, pretending to contact them after consideration but report to police instead. But they aren't dumb, my friend said they refused to leave any contact number. No flyer, no number.

This kind of case how to prevent?

I really hate it when the bad guys are smarter than me.

black and white or white and black

Ok I can't stand it no more. It seems ridiculous to wait for the advertisement to finish loading before my own blog post can appear.

So here I am back to 2 columns, well not quite, maybe 1+ 0.5 + 0.5. Please get used to leaning on your left when reading this blog, cos the entries have been shifted back to the left side.

As for the white background, well let's say if your greasy fingers touch the screen, you can spot it.

(I always can't seem to be satisfied with my blog template. Let's see how long can this one last...)

loading speed survey

Ever since I have implemented the 3-columns template, I find that my blog loads a bit slow on some machines. So now I'm thinking of changing the template again to optimise loading time.

Before that, I'll like to have your invaluable input on this...

Thank you!

*EDIT: survey closed. ok it's obvious, a torty can crawl faster than this!*

quote of the day

Is there a fire inside...
or someone smoking?
a yr 4 lecture mate pointed to a cubicle at the male's toilet at Block E1

-_-"
Being one of the wettest place around, I believe the toilet is the least likely to have a fire.

Or someone could have set the toilet roll on fire.

Is there toilet paper made of tobacco leaf?

pingsters decoding yusheng

About 20 odd (or even) pingsters had our Chinese New Year gathering yesterday at De Coder's Cafe.

De Coder's is a board game cafe, so besides lao-ing the yusheng, we also had rounds after rounds of games. Some games were pretty no-brainer, while others really squeeze the juice out of your gray matters. I really enjoyed the Jurassic Jumble, which is a game that requires you to snatch plastic bones. Fine, I lost the most number of times =P (luckily they forgot about the forfeit)

And the yusheng ritual was conducted by daphne. Before that I really didn't know that you have to say a four-letter word before adding in each ingredient. Not just any four-letter word ok!

Do check out the nice photos by claudia! Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | video
Rinaz has a video too! here

quote of the day

I was at 7-Eleven buying milk when an Indian man pointed to the photo of Edison on the front page of Chinese newspaper and asked me:

eh brother, who's this guy?

He invented the light bulb.

barcode and food safety

Recently there has been some concern over food safety, especially if you are eating dumplings in Japan. Erm, normally the barcode on the food packaging won't tell you if the food is poisonous or not, but it gives you some idea of where the food is from. Personally I have experienced this: I examine all 6 sides of the carton box but still can't find the country of origin. Maybe there are some Arabic words that say "Made in China", but I won't know. This is where the barcode comes in.

Most of the time you will see the barcode with a set of numbers underneath. Take note of the first 3 digits, that's the GS1 Prefix. Each code is assigned to different countries, for example 690 to 695 are assigned to China, 955 for Malaysia, 888 for Singapore (nice number). So if you see the first 3 digits contain 690, stay calm, slowly put the goods back to the shelf, take a step back, and.... ok I'm just kidding.

But take note that it is not always true that the barcode reflects where the stuff is from. It merely tells us which country is assigned the code. I have eaten candy that is made in Thailand but has the Singapore code. =_="

So next time before you go to the supermarket, print the barcode list out.

industrial visit to ameron

is crap a raw material or waste material?
Since I've signed a non-disclosure agreement, I'm going to tell you all their trade secret but not the company name. =P No lah!

Visited Ameron on Wednesday. The company manufactures fiberglass composite pipes for the offshore oil and gas industry, and we had a tour around their production lines. It was quite interesting to see the way the pipes were made. You mix some glass fiber which looks like raffia string with epoxy resin (NOT raisin) and coil it around the mould, then you bake it in the oven and there you are, the pipe!

The ovens there are really huge. The test engineer was explaining some stuff to us when a worker pressed a button and the oven door beside me sprung open. I almost dived to the ground to take cover. Actually the door doesn't open till that wide an angle -_-"

Learned a lot of stuffs (and trade secret). Industrial visits are always fun =)

(thanks nich for the photo!)

department t-shirt

It was CE Day yesterday and NUS Department of Civil Engineering threw a mini carnival at the faculty. Everyone in the department got a free T-shirt, sponsored by Keppel Offshore & Marine. The T-shirt was quite cool looking, and I was standing there, thinking of switching course. =P

Does Department of Mechanical Engineering have T-shirt? Hmm I recall we have a not-quite-nice polo tee, that's all. Sometimes when I see other departments having their own cool looking T-shirt, I kind of envy them. Society of Mechanical Engineering, why don't you guys get some sponsors and give us free t-shirt instead of free water bottle which you gave? Comrades, it's the identity, IDENTITY!

Actually the Department of Crappy Engineering has T-shirt sold at cafepress =P

quote of the day

[...] the dirty business of generating electricity, hahahaha

--Prof Liew Ah Choy
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, NUS

hur hur hur.

I was biting my lips to prevent myself from bursting out laughing.

playing tetris on oscilloscope

Some EEE type has hacked the oscilloscope to play Tetris, and call it Scopetris


more at Lars' Electric Endeavors.

I know nuts about electronic circuitry. Throw me a breadboard and I may chew it.

aerospace industry induction programme

Those of you interested in the aerospace industry, here is an event that you shouldn't miss.

The Aerospace Industry Induction Programme (AIIP) is a one day programme for students from secondary schools, junior colleges, institutes of technical education, polytechnics and universities. There will be talks and presentations by people in the industry, followed by a visit to the Singapore Airshow (I don't mean tilting your head up and looking at air force aircraft flying overhead. I mean going to the airshow itself)

The programme is jointly organized by Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Association of Aerospace Industries (Singapore), supported by Economic Development Board, Singapore Workforce Development Agency, Republic of Singapore Air Force, and Singapore Airshow.

Date : Saturday, 23 February 2008
Venue : Ngee Ann Polytechnic Convention Centre
Time : 8.00 am
Tickets at $10 including transport and entry to the Singapore Airshow 08.
(ahem, the normal ticket price for the Airshow is $20)