students do sleep around

Not sure about you, but I do lie down on the study bench once in a while in campus, and I have napped under the desk in the tutorial room before.

But when I saw my programme mates from Penn State University doing the same thing, I start to wonder, is there something universally in common?

PWNED!

international museum day 2008

I know it's a bit late, but it's International Museum Day!

For today 31 May, 13 of Singapore's museum will have free entry, while on 1 and 2 June there will be free entry for senior citizens at all National Heritage Board museums. There will be other activities as well, so do check their website for details!

I know museum lovers will visit anyhow, but people who haven't been to museums, why not make it a family outing or a date?

(btw I used to be a museum tour guide)

do break

During lesson this morning Patrick from School of Design and Environment showed us a vase by Droog Design. Called "Do Break", this vase does break if you throw it at someone, but it will break in a different manner.

From the outside it looks like any ordinary porcelain vase. But if you look at the inside it is lined with a layer of rubber. So when it breaks, it is not going to shatter into pieces, but instead the rubber will hold the pieces together like glue.

The notion behind is, when couple quarrels, they throw things around, including this vase if it's in close proximity. When you throw this vase, not only does it not shatter, it also will have cracks and patterns running on it. But at the end of the day, the couple is still together as one.

So if your vase is clean with no cracks, it either means your family is loving, or you really keep your vase real well in the cupboard/storeroom.

what's so difficult about admitting to your mistake?

For this particular design exercise the professor brought in some items yesterday and each group was to choose one and analyze it. So our group chose this particular designer product and worked on the exercise at the computer lab. This groupmate was supposed to bring the item to class today.

She left the item at the computer lab and it was never to be found.

I was like freaking myself out and this groupmate who lost the item merely said "aiya the prof earn so much money, nevermind lah". Pure indifference.

It's not about how much salary the professor earns or how much does the item cost, but there could be values beneath the face value. It could be a gift from someone, could be a memento from a trip. It could be priceless.

Had the item been a Philippe Starck, I would have killed myself first thing.

EDIT: the groupmate emailed the lab staff and found the item. Yay!

beatles go baroque

Went to the Esplanade to catch Beatles go Baroque by re:mix, part of the Flipside series of performances.

re:mix is a classical music ensemble whose members come together to play music during their spare time. It was kinda cool to see them playing the violin in jeans. Casual is good. Oh a few of the members are engineers =)

They played 5 of Beatles pieces including Help, Girl, She loves you and A hard day's night. Playing the pieces Baroque style on violin was so different, I couldn't recognise She loves you!

Do check Esplanade's calendar and catch the Flipside's performances.
(come to think of it, the first time I attended Flipside was some 4 years ago)

american girls and sweettalk

The 2 Penn State girls in my team are like crazy over bubble tea. I bet the amount of bubble tea they have consumed over these few days out beats the amount of bubble tea I have the whole of my life. Since they love it so much, after lesson today I suggested going Clementi for some bubble tea.

Margo and Elise enjoying
They will go like "oopz" or "ohmygod" everytime they accidentally swallow the whole pearl. So with bubble tea in hand, we walked around Clementi Town Centre. Showing our American friends our heartland is something I find meaningful.

Bubble tea isn't my cup of tea, but it won't hurt to join in the fun once in a while right? The sealing machine at the stall is cool though.

quote of the day

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
-- George Bernard Shaw

pole dance cca

Do they have like "pole dance society" as CCA in schools?

This morning I was on a very crowded bus when this kiddo in National Junior College uniform shamelessly leaned on the grab pole which a few of the passengers were grabbing onto.

We didn't give way. One passenger put his hand on the pole near where the boy's neck was, while I put mine near his spine. We sticked our fingers/knuckles out and gave him some acupuncture.

He turned around and look at us. I gave him my cute lan jiao face.

day 2 with penn state

I managed to snap some photos today for the summer programme with Penn State University. Don't say NPNT!

That's Margo on the left and Elise on the right in my team. Both of them are very fun-loving. They were so horrified when I suggested western food during lunch. Oh the guy in the middle is NOT me.
The other half of the class. It's a small class of 15 in total. It's interesting to note that the students from Penn State have pretty much adapted to our berms and slippers way of life in NUS Engineering.
That's Wendy (did I say American Born Chinese in my previous post?) Today we were evaluating designs of mechanical pencils and Wendy was like throwing the mechanical pencils at the wall like darts. Crash test. Trust me it was violent

self publishing

A while ago I talked about publishing your own book, and recently I came across some more sites that help you self publish. DIY publishing seems like the hot thing now.

Wordclay is a bit different in the sense that they have tutorial slides to guide you through each step. Also, they have features such as designing the book cover and calculating the selling price which I haven't found in other sites providing similar service. Other sites usually give you a package price, which may lack flexibility in my opinion. Try their pricing calculator and you can have a rough gauge how much it will cost.

I think I better start working on the content before thinking of publishing my own books.

nissan bluebird and china

Culture can play an important role in the success (and failure) of a product.

Take for example the Nissan Bluebird, an excellent series of motorcar from Nissan. But it has difficulty selling in China.

In Chinese dialect, "bluebird" means male's genital.

Imagine people saying "want to ride on my bluebird"?

summer programme with penn state

Today starts the first day of my summer programme with engineering students from Penn State University.

You don't often find lectures with lecture notes provided in a nice big ring file, and morning tea break provided with nice cream puff and stuff. Was it only for first day?

The programme is on product design, and the lecture could get dry at times, talking about culture and customer... but at least there were interaction when the lecturers opened to the floor for (sometimes funny) opinions and comments. I wonder how did the Penn State students find our Singlish =P

So over tea break and lunch we interacted more, found out more about one another's campus life, etc. They found our campus interesting in the sense that buildings are tall. They were like admiring that zig-zag flight of stairs at Block EA. -_-" And apparently their canteen food sucks more than ours.

Oh there's this really cute American Chinese girl from Penn State whom I had lunch with. =)(no photo, sorry) Think I should take her around Singapore?

faking the water meter

My aerospace engineer brother is doing a little experiment. He lets the tap drip and collect the water in a pail, and see if this way it can save on meter reading.

Experimental setup wise, there is no basis of comparison that I'm aware of, so let's say it's flawed. And theoretically speaking I think you can fake the meter, but you need some research.

If I'm not wrong, the household water meter we have is of the rotary piston type. Water flows in from the inlet, turns the piston, and flows out in the outlet hole. As the piston rotates, some network of gears will turn the digit.

So, how to let water flow without turning the digit? You can't. But at either very high or very low flow rate, the meter becomes inaccurate. Of course you want it to undercount and not overcount, so what do you do? You get hold of the meter's characteristic chart and voila, the magical flow rate is 1.5 litre/hr.

Those who do maths would have come across something like "when this tends to zero, that tends to infinity" stuff. I hope in this case it's saving that tends to infinity and not cost.

(please don't play with the meter itself, they don't put a seal there for nothing. I know you are thinking of inverting the meter. Do you think the meter reading will go backwards?)

hi i'm chillycraps

When I attend events as a blogger (not blogger's events though), I always face with this situation:

"hi I'm chillycraps"
"you are.... what?"

"chillycraps, you know... the local delicacy?"

Yeah right.

Then people will go like "but you have a name right?" -_-"

Somehow people (me included) aren't that used to using nicknames. Of course if it's not blogger related, I won't introduce myself as that. You don't see me filling in "chillycraps" in my exam answer booklet.

And then the name card. It is a bit embarrassing when people hand you their name card (business card), and you have none in return. Maybe I seriously need one like this...

Gah, I am just blogging for fun, why is it turning professional?

solidcam day 2008 invitation

CAD/CAM type, you mustn't miss this event...


SeaCAD is going to launch its new SolidCAM2008 R12 at SolidCAM Day 2008.
Date: 13 June 2008
Time: 9am to 12:30pm
Venue: Hilton Hotel
Registration: email to sales[at]seacadtech.com by May 30. It's free.

(btw I have something on, so I can't attend. Would love to though)

my blogger's assumptions

As a person who writes blogs, sometimes I find myself making 2 very contradicting assumptions. One is that people read my blog, the other is that people don't read my blog.

The first assumption about people reading my blog, is something like you assume people know what is happening to you. Take for example, recently I was bedridden and I received many messages asking me stuff like where's hardware store, recommendation for climbing, whether I'm going for gathering that night, etc etc. Then I couldn't help thinking, do they know what happened to me or not? I didn't tell anyone other than my blog, so basically I had only told my readers.

Have you ever asked your friends this question: "eh you never read my blog ah? I got write there wad" I don't really expect my friends to read my blog, which brings to the next assumption.

The second assumption is that people don't read your blog. Sometimes when friends brought up something which I don't remember telling them, I would like "eh how u know one?" "you wrote on your blog wad!!" This second assumption is slightly more dangerous, it's what makes you write your heart's content, oblivious to the surrounding, and start offending people. Recently there's this school girl in Hong Kong who blogged about not wanting to donate to the quake victims, but rather save the pandas. It could very well be her own thoughts, but news spread and her blog got flamed by the massive China online community.

Assumption makes the ass out of u and me.

sugary talk

Do you know that Brazil has the largest sugar production in the world?

Sugar comes in different grades just like metals, under something called ICUMSA (International Commission For Uniform Methods Of Sugar Analysis). They classify sugar using its colour, as raw sugar is usually dark in colour while highly refined one is, well, white like sugar.

Unrefined centrifugal sugar is in the range of ICUMSA 400 to 1500, which buyers usually import and refine in their own countries. Then you go down the scale and you have ICUMSA 45, a highly refined sparkling white sugar which is less readily obtainable.

In refining sugar, it undergoes basically the processes of affination, carbonation and boiling. You can find more from the Icumsa 45 website.

Next time you pour the sugar into your coffee, think of the process the grains had gone through =)

environmental crappy

Sometimes it's not wise to always follow what they say to save the environment.
Examples:

1. They say switch off home appliances at the power socket, don't leave them on standby. So you unplug your refrigerator's power and only plug it in when you open the fridge door and need the light.


2. Throw your mucus-soaked tissue paper into the paper recycling bin and your plastic sweet wrapper into the bin for plastic. Styrofoam food holder (with juice and oil) is plastic as well... no?


3. Switch off the light when not in use. So when you are reading and flipping to the next page, you don't need the light right? You can switch the light back on when you have finished flipping to the page.
   

I'm just going by the book.

bubbleman on bus

I had finished up my medicine, so this morning I went to the doctor for resupply, which was a bus ride away.

I don't usually wear cap, but to prevent unnecessary panic from members of the public, I just had to try to cover up as many exposed bubbles as possible and stay low profile. Still, people stared...

I really felt like telling them "this is what I get for ordering chicken at Geylang" or "I was one of those guys in the cigarettes pack picture". Simpler still, "never seen before drug addict is it?!"

I was nice. I only had to move closer towards them.

bubble puzzle

The bubbles on me are getting larger in size and number. Everytime I look into the mirror I thought this mirror is more cool than the ones in fairy tales.

Ok it's not hand foot and mouth disease, since my tongue hasn't gotten it, yet, but the rest of the drawing paper has been pretty much filled. Even the ears, the nostrils, the throat have got it. So when I sit I'm going to burst some bubbles, when I lie down I'm going to burst another row of bubbles. Standing up and walking would burst the bubbles on my feet as well. eek.

And I've been a good boy, drinking lots of water. But somehow the pee is not proportional to the water intake. Where did the water go? Did the virus use the water to fill the bubbles? Wow that's like feeding my enemy with free bullets.

There were nights when my breathing was shallow, and I thought I was going to meeting Issac Newton and Albert Einstein at the other world. Nah, if I meet them now I'll only look stupid.

I better recover faster, I'm not going to waste my holiday cos of a pig face.

chillycraps tio virus

Ok it's viral infection, doc said it's along the line of hand-foot-&-mouth disease and measles. What the...

My body temperature is now 39.6 degrees Celsius, feet and palms are icy cold, forehead and neck is burning hot. Bubbles have popped up all over the body, so much so that if you join them up with a marker pen you will get the floor plan like in Prison Break. My face is super swollen, and dream on about NPNT. It's disgusting. Since it's contagious, I am confined to my home. Anyway I have no strength to move my limps.

If the fever goes on, it's going to fry my processing unit.

chillycraps out of order

My body is very weird, it waits till the holiday then it starts to break apart. Dunno if it's good thing or bad thing.

Now I dunno if I'm half-conscious, or half-unconscious.

I guess it's an accumulation. This semester had been pretty tiring for me, physically. Then on Tuesday I went bouldering and kind of worked my body out. Then almost everyday I have been sitting in front of the computer, staring at my Philips 170B screen. Somehow I feel that computer has this special feature of zapping your energy away. (no wonder I see an "energy star" sticker). Then attending events and stuff..

So how I feeling now? My joints are numb, my limps are numb, headache, whole body aches, forehead needs a heatsink, and rolling my eyeballs hurts.

Where is the blardy technician?!?!

sipping coffee at old school

Attended Carte Noire's launch event "Sip" at Old School yesterday and it was an eye opener for me. Must be the fashion show models that opened my eyes =P.

Carte Noire is a French coffee brand made from Arabica beans.

The event started with the opening address, followed by fashion show featuring the designs by Romyda Keth. Pretty models =P


Next up was foam art demonstration by Danny and hands-on session for the guests. Ask anything about coffee and Danny can tell you a story about it. Really like the way he explains in an analytical yet easy to understand manner.

the man and the machine
As for the coffee, I find it a tad on the light side but the taste is very clear. I'm looking forward to trying my bottle of freeze-dried Carte Noire.


Thanks for the invite!

bloggers unite for human rights

Today is May 15, and the topic for today is human rights. If you want to know the "official" definitions of human rights, you can read up United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There are 30 articles and I'm not going to list them down here.

Looking at the declaration, it seems like violation of human rights can happen in every country. "Everyone has the right to equal pay for equal work". Doesn't happen.

And, abuse of human rights can happen too. Take for example, a guy enters the female toilet, and argues that he has the "right to freedom of movement".
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression". Try this and prepare to get sued for defamation.

Ah, I like this: "Everyone has the right to rest and leisure" Ask a slacking worker to tell his boss.

Have you thought of this, "I have the right to deny your rights"?

solar powered rubbish bin

I came across this very interesting toy in my newsletter: the BigBelly solar powered trash can.

You must be wondering, why would a rubbish bin need solar energy? To microwave the rubbish inside? Nah, The solar panel powers a compactor, which will compact (ie, squeeze) the rubbish inside the bin. It is said that this bin can hold 5 times as much rubbish as an ordinary rubbish bin. BigBelly eh?

This high tech rubbish bin also has some not-so-obvious benefits. Imagine it can hold 5 times as much rubbish, that means the cleaner only needs to empty the bin 5 times less frequent than before. This definitely saves manhour. Now, the manufacturer claims that it can save the rubbish truck's trip by 80%, which means saving on fuel, reducing emission and easing the road congestion. Less smelly rubbish trucks on the road.

The way I see some roadside rubbish bin overflowing, I think Singapore needs some of this toys.


Here is their website.

gone bouldering

Went bouldering at ClimbAsia this afternoon and man it was awesome!
I pulled my tricep. -_-"

It has been a very long time since I last did bouldering, and it felt good to be doing routes and stuff again. All the funny postures like drop-knee and Egyptian... There were lots of climbing girls there, you see them climb you will understand what does "girl power" mean.

my friend OTC doing some cliff-hanging
sorry, no pics of me.
This coming Sunday morning I will be climbing at SAFRA Yishun, anybody interested?

© and copyright

I came across a local website that links to other blogs and sites, and put a "Copyright © 2008" behind. It is highly likely to be infringing the Copyright Act.

What is copyright actually? According to the Copyright Act, "27.(2) Subject to the provisions of this Act, where an original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work has been published (a) copyright shall subsist in the work."
To put it simpler in less law sor term, anything that is original is protected by copyright. Such as your blog entries.

How long is it protected? "28.(2) Subject to this section, where, by virtue of this Part, copyright subsists in a literary, dramatic or musical work, or in an artistic work other than a photograph, that copyright shall continue to subsist until the expiration of 70 years after the expiration of the calendar year in which the author of the work died."
Again, to put it simpler, your work will be protected for 70 years + your remaining life.

Who owns the copyright? "30.(2) Subject to this section, the author of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work shall be entitled to any copyright subsisting in the work by virtue of this Part."
Copy and pasting other people's work and putting a "Copyright © 2008" behind doesn't make you the copyright owner.

What about the offences? Nah it sounds too scary, let's just say it includes fine and imprisonment.

So, if the kid is not your son, don't go around telling people claiming he's your son.

happy vip

To all the coursemates who are doing Vacation Internship Programme (VIP) this summer break (ie, starting today),

happy VIPeeing!
Make sure you take home something =) (I don't mean take home the stuff in the factory or company, I mean learn something from your internship!)

Career talks are blind, internship opens your eyes. You will get to know how shitty some industries are. Knowing which industry not to get into is equally important as knowing which industry to get into.

some mothers

Today I went for the Mother's Day Special concert at the Esplanade. The show was supposed to start at 3pm, but by 2pm there was already a long queue outside the Concert Hall. Some people were just trying very hard to find excuses to cut the queue, right in front of the security guards. What's new.

So the show started, and there were 4 old aunties sitting in front of me. Let's not talk about why their kids were not there, or maybe they were one another's mother or something, but they were like talking non-stop throughout the performance. Fighting with the state-of-the-art sound system, "chopping" seats for people who weren't there even till the end of the show... C'mon, if you want to make noise, go somewhere and open mahjong table can?

(oopz, i made the assumption that aunties must be mothers)

folding shopping cart

If there's one thing I want to redesign, it's the folding shopping cart.

A simple yet great device that has benefited countless number of housewives (and maids), the folding shopping cart has seen action from the shiny tiles of supermarkets, to the wet and uneven ground of the wet markets. You can push it, you can pull it, you can put nothing in it, or load it over the brim. It always amuses me to see aunties maneuver the cart over the most difficult of terrains.

At a height of 179cm, I always find it a pain in the ass back to handle the folding cart. If I push it, I'll have to lean forward; if I pull it, I'll have to lean sideway depending on which hand is pulling. Either way, my back will ache at the end of the grocery run. My relatively higher centre of gravity coupled with the small front wheels of the cart also increase the danger of me tilting forward when pushing the cart and hitting some obstacle in the path. My long strides make my heels hit the cart when pulling.

All I need is a longer handle.

personalized ventilation

I just attended a briefing for a research project by the Department of Building, NUS.

It is said that in an urban setting, people spend up to 90% of the time indoor. And more than 90% of these indoor environments are air-conditioned, so we are like spending most of our time air-conditioned. This poses challenges to environment and efficiency. Raising the aircon temperature setting may reduce power consumption, but the air quality deteriorates at the same time.

Basically the research is on evaluating the performance of a new type of ventilation system. This new design is pretty interesting. Think of it this way: you are in the big office and you are the only one working. If there is a desk lamp, do you use the desk lamp or do you keep the whole office lighted up with the rows of fluorescent tubes? So here comes the new design, a nozzle that will supply fresh cool air to individuals, something like on a bus. Why chill the whole office when all you need is to keep your cubicle/desk cool?

Maybe, you can even choose your own flavor of fresh air. Marlboro red?

design project reimbursement

Coursemates from NUS ME Department, the reimbursement for the industrial design project has been credited to the bank account, do check it out!

Although theoretically it's your own money, but still it feels good to see the amount. It sounds wrong to call it pleasant surprise. Damn, my few months of interest...


Oh, under the invoice details, it says "PURCHASE GENERATORS". Erm, I didn't buy no generator. Next time I should try putting "PURCHASE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT", sure sounds cool.

how sentosa express switch rail

Have you wondered how does the Sentosa Express switch rail? Being a monorail system, the mechanism is slightly different from normal railway's switching mechanism and in my opinion it's quite spectacular.

The other day I went to Sentosa and took this set of pictures:

the track from the station leads to the right track, which goes to Sentosa
something's moving...