vote now!

It's the last day of voting for the Singapore Blog Awards. Don't you want to lend your support to your favourite bloggers, and stand a chance to win travel package for yourself?


Exercise your rights NOW!

broadband on phoneline

Since the time I was on 56k till now on ADSL, I have experienced problems with my phone line once in a while. The other day my mother was chatting with my grandmother on the phone and suddenly the line went dead. Not very nice between in-laws huh.

Our normal 4-wire phone line was designed for voice, and loading it with broadband and TV and what-not is like asking a beetle to pull a cow. The fact that my housing estate is some 30-40 years old doesn't really help. I think I fried the phone exchange before.

Now broadband should ditch that RJ-11 plug and go with fibre-optics. In many places such as Japan, Korea, Sweden, France and Hong Kong, service providers are laying Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH). You can have the fastest car on the slowest lane. Hello, when are you coming to Singapore, optics cable?

The sexy thing about fibre-optics is, it uses light instead of electricity. A light beam travels faster than the electron, and it can cross each other. (simple experiment, shine 2 torchlights at right angle to each other. See the light?) Try crossing 2 electrical wires, and you got yourself a nice short-circuit. If you can pack as many light beams as the circuits in the size of your Pentium processor, you've got yourself the fastest computer in the world. But the thing is, you need electricity to generate the light for the fibre-optics.

automatic dessert machine

Nowadays even the food industry is going automation. From automatic yakitori machine to automatic barbecue chicken machine. And it's always a joy to watch the breakfast machine in Wallace & Gromit.

I just came across this Japanese automatic dessert machine and I was kinda impressed. The end product? You can catch it in the video clip. The fork was damn funny.

wheelchair on reels

This morning I was at the hospital and saw something interesting.

There was this man on wheelchair at the waiting area, waiting for his turn to see the doctor. He's in his 30s I guess. He approached the nurse and told her he was going to the toilet, lest he missed the queue number. After that, guess what, he stood up and brisk-walked to the toilet! In the first place, did he need the wheelchair? Or was there no empty seat at the waiting area?

Then I saw a lady on wheelchair, her right leg was amputated. A nurse came, and asked if the lady could stand up. I was like, what the? The nurse didn't realize at first.

Did the nurse ask the first guy the same question? (and the guy must had replied "yeah I can run a full StandChart")

green science toy

That day I was at the department store's toy section (don't laugh) and saw this interesting toy. The Green Science series by 4M.

It is some injection molded modeling kit that lets you build dynamo, battery from orange, wind turbine, catamaran, crawling coke can, etc etc. Seriously it is quite low tech compared to your handheld game console, cost more than it's worth, but I think it packs more educational values than a PSP or NDS. You can build your stuff and learn science at the same time.

Tell me how many of you rip open your PSP and play with the circuit board inside?

supermarket note

Was at the supermarket yesterday and made the following observations:

• A basket with a pack of fresh eggs was on the floor. A woman came, took out the eggs, put them next to some inedible stuff, and took the basket away for her own use.
  
  
  • Possibility 1: the woman had been using the basket. Then she decided she didn't want the eggs. Still, she could have returned the eggs to where they belong right?
  • Possibility 2: the woman stunned other people's basket. What if the other user came back and found her basket missing? (and her nicely chosen eggs next to some washing powder)
    

• A promoter was promoting some blood orange juice. I tried the sampling, and decided to buy one bottle of the type that she wasn't promoting.
  

• I spotted a security guard, the non-uniformed type. He was carrying a pack of batteries and shaver, pretending to queue up at the checkout counter, and kept peeping at other customers. He didn't stay long at any one queue. He looked more like a pervert.
  

citizen engineer volume 1

I just watched Volume 1 of the video series Citizen Engineer and man I am impressed!

In this volume they talk about how a SIM card works, cloning it, and also how to hack a payphone.


Citizen_Engineer from citizen engineer on Vimeo.
Beyond me.

quotes of the day

nadnut: (at chillycraps) I'll fork you!

nadnut: Where's Jean?
dk: I'm wearing it.

Had a very fun time with blogger friends at El Sheikh, a Lebanese restaurant at Pahang Street. It was my first time trying Lebanese food and it was very special, especially the appetizer.

The non-alcoholic Bavaria beer was a bit disappointing though.

train door not closing

Yesterday I was in the first car of the MRT train, standing next to the very first door and facing the direction of travel. The train was about to leave the station. The station doors closed. The train doors were still wide open. -_- I was like what the...

I didn't take out my camera phone, cos it was the perfect chance to fumble and drop your phone into the tunnel. So don't complain NPNT. But luckily the train didn't move off. Either the driver was vigilant, or there's a feedback system that prevents the train from moving with opened doors. The tunnel stinks.

I wonder was the problem with the platform screen doors by Westinghouse, or the Kawasaki train?

iphone 3g viewing session

Was invited to the iPhone 3G viewing session organized by BLOG2u.

By right the iPhone 3G is not available in Singapore yet, but by left they are here!

Feeling high yet? That's just the box.

Even the accessories inside are shiny. Argh my eyes!
Alice testing out if the iPhone 3G is chillycraps-friendly, or is chillycraps.com iPhone 3G friendly?
The 2 cute security guards hired by paddy.
Malique doing a runner with the iPhone 3G. Nah, he was testing out the GPS function.
I'm not a diehard fan of Steve Jobs, I don't wear turtleneck, so what do I think of the iPhone 3G? Like malique said, it's an iPhone, it's 3G. What more do you ask for?

By the way, the 2 units on display were installed with anti-theft software by BAK2u, so can forget about stunning them.

expiry date for gift

It has been more than a month since I came back from my Hong Kong trip, and there's a gift that's still lying in my room.

I don't usually buy gifts back from trip. But before my trip, this girl kept asking me to buy things back for her. Even during the trip when I logged onto MSN, she also reminded me not to forget about her present. Fine, so during the last few days there I went around hunting for things to buy for her. Finally I got one.

When I returned, I asked when she can meet up. She kept saying she's busy, etc etc. I think she was working. Then later on when her contract had ended, she was still busy. I can't be bothered now. But I feel bothered.

You know, if you don't mean what you say, then don't say so many times!

What should I do with the gift?

related plurk.

modular dream

Recently I keep having funny and interesting dreams. A few nights ago while sleeping I was calculating how many modular credits (MC) do I have left, and it was quite accurate. I have 32 MCs left.

Then last night, I was dreaming of taking some disgusting mechatronics modules. MECHATRONICS!!! What a nightmare.

There is a Chinese saying "日有所思, 夜有所梦", meaning whatever you think of in the day time, will appear in your dream at night. True enough, these few days I have been thinking of what modules to take for the coming semester. (hello, NUS people, CORS Round 0 today)

Oh final year people, better say hi to your supervisors. Who knows what special modules they want you to take. One of my supervisors just dumped me 9 research papers to chew.

gecko's foot

The other day I was preparing for dinner when a house lizard crawled onto my hand. I can say the feeling was quite "eew", but I'm kinda used to it. That reminds me of the gecko's foot that I read about a few weeks ago.

How many of you still think that the house lizard can stick onto the wall cos its feet have suction cups? WRONG! The gecko's toes have tiny bristles called setae, which exert van der Waals force of attraction on the walking surface. I only learned about van der Waals force between atoms and molecules in my material science class, but lizard?!? It is nanoscale stuff, so you can forget about catching a lizard and looking at its feet like some leg fetish pervert. Oh, and the paint advertisement with lizard slipping down the wall, it's fake. It's said that Teflon is the only surface that a lizard cannot stick onto.

Peter Forbes talked about these in a chapter in his book Gecko's Foot, which talks about bio-inspiration. Honestly the book is not those WOW kind of exciting book, and I was struggling to go beyond chapter 1. He's into chemistry and biology. I'm not. But if you want to read more on how scientists and engineers borrow ideas from the nature, the book is a good read.

Did I tell you that when I was a kid, a lizard fell off from the ceiling and landed on my head? I hope it didn't go through some laser beam, if not I would be a super hero by now.

mr torimoto vs solidworks

Man vs machine, who will win? You have seen IBM's Deep Blue play chess with Garry Kasparov, now how about designing a robot?

Received this newsletter talking about origami master Norio Torimoto challenging SolidWorks into creating a robot. The conversation between Torimoto and SolidWorks in the video is quite funny. Go to their website and watch it.

Honestly nowadays I'm quite rusty with SolidWorks. Maybe I'll go for the paper.

omy email interview

Oh my, I only realized my email interview was published when MissLoi told me about it. "好 Cool 喔" *blush blush*

It's at http://blog.omy.sg/sgblogawards/archives/113


Anyway have you voted?

fireman dream

Last night I had this weird dream. I dreamed of myself signing on as fireman, undergoing trainings, and this instructor told me he reads my blog. -_-"

Yeah yeah, thanks to my overdose of Hong Kong dramas. What 烈火雄心, 十万火急...

When I was a kid, I did dream of becoming a fireman when I grow up. In fact, I used to stay near a fire station and grew up hearing the siren. Guess that kind of dream is different. 6 years ago, I was one of the last few to receive my enlistment letter. I almost thought I would be serving my national service with the civil defense force.

I still get high when I see a fire engine.

when crossing the road

Yesterday I was crossing the road with my brother when he suddenly said "watch out".

Seeing that there was no traffic, I told him, "no car leh."

He replied, "watch out for traffic police"

=_=

So next time when you teach your kids to cross the road, must look right, look left, look across the road.

hong kong trip photos done

Ah, finally I have posted the final photoblog entry for my Hong Kong trip, you can find all the entries HERE.

It has been a very tiring process, with 300 over photos to edit, to write, to crap. Ever since I came back from my trip I have been spending whole morning or whole afternoon each day writing the entries. A 14-day trip took more than 14 days to blog about. It's like a dried up sea cucumber suddenly soaked in water, expanding like no body's business. (what kind of analogy is this?)

I know the photo quality sucks. But the stories behind, every detail, every dust, bring back fond memories. My time away from keyboard did give me some peace. And the occasional ah pek looking at this weirdo with a Nokia E51.

Enjoy.

garang guni is the next top spy

I'm not trying to say garang guni (rag and bone) men are baddies, but there is no reason to let down our guard either.

Within the short period of this morning, this garang guni man popped by my house 3 times, each time stopping at my house and asking if we have any old newspaper to sell. Maybe cos the whole corridor only my door was opened, I didn't hear the garang guni man asking my neighbours if they had anything to sell. The way he stood there waiting for an answer, really was disturbing.

Put myself in the shoes of a potential burglar. If I want to break into a house, I would want to familiar myself with the layout and stuff. Where's the cupboard, where's the drawers, where's the handphones... It doesn't take a Michael Scofield from Prison Break.

Not only garang guni men, I think survey ppl, promoters, property agents, all make great recce troopers. Didn't you hear the story of Japanese barber in the British naval base?

hookean experiment

If you are feeling bored sitting at your desk, here is a little mechanical engineering experiment for you.

Take out a normal paper clip, like the one shown above. Make sure it is perfectly flat. Now clip a piece of paper. By right, the paper clip isn't flat anymore cos the paper has thickness. Remove the piece of paper, and the paper clip goes back to its original shape. Why is it so? This is because the metallic paper clip obeys Hooke's Law. Within the elastic limit (or Hookean limit), the paper clip goes back to its original shape like a spring.

Now let's try something a bit sadistic. Pull the paper clip's leg until it doesn't go back to its original flat shape when you release the force. What has just taken place is plastic deformation, where the elastic limit has been exceeded. The paper clip can no longer spring back to its original shape by itself.

Of course, the extreme case is to pull a rubber band until it snaps, but that experiment is too violent. Ok, that's the end of our experiment today. Lab report due tomorrow 5pm.

china is in north america

This morning I was reading the newspaper and this Tanyoto (谭鱼头) advertisement caught my eyes.


That map in the background sure doesn't look like East Asia. In fact, it looks like North America! I digged out my atlas and also Google Map, and viola, I was right.


China is sitting on North America, Australia is on Brazil, and Singapore? Singapore is on Honduras! I didn't know the tectonic plates have moved so much.

Next time you can say China is part of USA.

this pole cannot grab

I noticed a potential hazard on the SBS Transit's Scania bus.

Due to the low floorboard design of the bus, the step at the exit is gone. And with the step gone, it's easier to alight, also easier to stand there when the bus gets packed like sardine can. When you stand in a bus, you grab a pole or hold the handgrip for stability. When you grab, you grab anything you can grab onto (except the passenger next to you. Most of the time.)

But but but, the black pole indicated by the red arrow in the photo cannot be grabbed! It's the axis of rotation for the exit door. Be it hydraulic or electric motor, the torque generated can easily hurt your wrist if you are grabbing onto it when the door opens or closes. As long as Barney is not onboard, the only things you can grab onto in the Scania bus are in purple.

Why can't the bus company invest a little money to put a plastic or rubber guard in place? Or, if they don't want to find excuses to raise the fare, they can always paste some red and white striped sticker on the pole.

Hmm, I have seen people grabbing the black pole, but never lean or poledance.

fyp allocation

Aite, FYP allocation was out yesterday and I got allocated to...

Studies of Sustainability for Biodegradable and Non-Biodegradable Polymers In Product Design

Today's products use various polymer materials. They can be made into product components with the same material or mixed with other type of materials (e.g. metals). With the increasing concern on sustainability, the treatment of products at the end-of-life stage has become an important factor for material selection at the design stage. This project is to study the economical and environmental performance of components made from biodegradable and non-biodegradable polymers under typical recycle/reuse scenarios.
This project is suitable for Product Design specialization.

It is my 2nd choice out of 8, but it doesn't matter actually, cos I had a hard time ranking them, so in a way you can say I have 8 of 1st choice. I know of coursemates who got their first choice, and coursemates who are allocated projects that they didn't even choose. Not sure what was the allocation process, but I suspect priority was given to people enrolled in specialization. Just wild guess.

Anyone knows?

fyp

FYP: officially stands for Final Year Project. Unofficially stands for Final Year Punishment, Find Your Project, Find Your Professors. Fxxk you, pervert.

A few weeks ago some of us were busy looking at the list of projects, tossing coins or otherwise to pick our choices of FYP. Some even suggested writing a C programme with sorting algorithm and what-not. What some of my coursemates said about "find your professors" was quite true. After hearing from many sources, the wise thing to do is to choose the professor, not the project. You can choose the best of project which you dreamed of ever since you were inside your mother's womb, but if the professor, well, can't click with you, then too bad. I've heard enough stories about some professors.

Even putting aside the human factor, choosing the project wasn't easy, especially for those enrolled in specialization. Those not in any specialization have free choice in the menu, but those like me have to choose projects within the specialization. From my observation, offshore oil and gas technology (OOGT) had it bad.

The allocation is tomorrow, let's hope everyone get their favourite project, if not favourite professor.

support our local products

Support our local economy.
Support our local products.
Vote for our local blogs.

crap's feet tuition

Last night my "tuition boy" messaged me, saying he has gotten back his maths paper and he scored 78/100. So I asked "then how? must retake?" "Why retake? I'm 2nd in the level leh, the 1st scored 79." Erm, ok...

He isn't really my tuition boy, cos I ain't really his tuition teacher. Our sessions are mostly ad-hoc basis, as and when needed. The evening before his maths paper we had a 3-hour spamming session (aka hugging Buddha's feet). You got to recognize that some people perform better with last minute work, something to do with the pressure-performance relationship.

And you know the interesting thing? My "tuition boy" himself is a maths tuition teacher, much more experienced than me and as such during our sessions he was always teaching me how to teach him. Like, "let's do these questions" "let's start with these topics"

Ala-carte tuition.

osim singapore international triathlon 2008 day 1

Went to help out for the day 1 of OSIM Singapore International Triathlon 2008 as a safety canoeist and thankfully it was quite eventless. When there were no competitors in the water, I could sit there in my kayak, chew on my biscuit, and admire the airliners cutting through the clouds and leaving a visible trail behind the wings (trailing edge?).

The current was quite strong, so the swimmers had some problem swimming in a straight line. A few competitors complained to me that the rope (that marks out the swim route) was rubbing against their shoulder or they got stuck in the rope (?!?!), one even asked me to tow him away from the rope. I almost asked "do you need a powerboat or jetski to tow you to the finish point?" For some categories the congestion in the water was quite bad, such that swimmers kicked against one another, hit others with their strokes, etc. One female competitor held on to the rope and I thought she was in distress, so I asked if she was alright. Her reply was "I'm fine, but that bastard!" -_-"

Oh I met a super duper cool girl Lesley who just graduated from NTU Chemical Engineering. One of the lifeguard was quite cute too! (ok, getting out of point)

Anyway, hope that tomorrow's event will be fine too! Today it rained right after we beached up. Thankfully.

staying afloat

Recently there was this case of an undergraduate drowning during yacht training, and a debate on why he wasn't wearing life jacket, why he didn't know how to swim, etc. Some time ago, there was a case of man drowning while kayaking in the reservoir, and he was wearing a PFD (personal flotation device). I can hear a bell ring in me, cos this weekend I will be in the sea as lifesaver for a triathlon event.

This isn't the first time I'm helping out as a safety canoeist (around 4-5 times), but I feel that in the outdoor, you can never be too cocky about your experience. It was after a particular event which I met with a storm and a water sprout, and developed a little fear, that I began to train up regularly in the swimming pool. If you can't keep yourself safe, how are you supposed to save others?

The weather hasn't been stable lately. Let's hope that nothing bad happens for this event.

busier than you

It only took one phrase to piss me off.

I have this friend who studies abroad, and is currently back for holidays. So that day I was doing stuff on my computer and he msned me. He was asking if the few of us would want to meet up or something, and I said I might be busy, then he popped me this line, saying another of the friend is busier than me.

I was like, what the? What makes you think that someone else is busier than me? What makes you think that I am more free than someone else? So if the supposedly busier guy can meet you, does that mean I am obliged to do so too?

So I showed him how busy I was by signing out of my Windows Live Messenger.

skuuma soft surface design competition 2008

I just submitted my design for Skuuma soft surface design competition 2008.

Skuuma is a Dutch furniture brand which takes in design ideas from people around the world, through design competitions. Winners in the competition get royalties for the winning entries while their designs see the world in people's homes and offices. I think this is a very cool concept, as it helps budding designers into the playing field.

This year's theme incorporates polyurethane into the design. Sure sounds cool and funky for furniture huh.

Visit their website for more details. Submission deadline is 23 July.
By the way I just take part for fun.

attachment

This morning I went to the wet market. At the meat stall, had a little chat with the stallholder auntie. She asked me about my university life and said "it's time for attachment."

Thinking that she meant industrial attachment, I told her I have attached already. She let out a loud laughter, it was then that I realized her version of "attachment" could be different from my version of "attachment".

She better don't ask funny questions next time when my mother goes to the wet market.

self(less) registration at polyclinics

This morning I went to a National Health Group polyclinics.

Something is different. Previously you had to go to counter 1 to get a queue number from a staff. Now they have 3 "self registration" machines, and 3 staffs standing beside the machine.

At first I thought, the 3 staffs were there to guide patients to use the machines, as the implementation should be quite new and people may not know how to use them. But surprise surprise, instead I saw the staffs snatching the identity card from the patient, shove it into the machine's barcode scanner and issue the patient the queue ticket. I didn't see the staffs teaching patients how to use the machines. So what's the difference between the new system and the old system?

The new system uses 3 man (or woman) and 3 machines. The old system used 1 man and a desktop computer. I was involved in process optimization before while I was working in a factory, and we used stopwatch to record timing of each process in the production line. In this case of the polyclinics, the registration had never been the bottle neck. Maybe yes you save some of the patients' queuing time to get the queue number (how ironic, queue for queue number)

I remember some banks used to have a staff standing at the ATM and cash deposit machine area to offer assistance to customer, and subsequently as people are familiar with the machines, the staff was no longer stationed there. I hope this is the same case in the polyclinics, with the freed up manpower diverted to the bottlenecks.

Sometimes I just feel that there are too many stations to go through before I can step out of the polyclinics. Like playing Super Mario.

mopster

A while ago I received a notice from the town council, saying that the way I placed the mop on the bamboo pole holders was dangerous.

I looked at the setup, the bamboo pole holders are inclined at roughly 10 degrees from the horizontal, and the mop was supported laterally by a row of 5 holders along its length, parallel to and close against the wall. Intuitively I think it's a stable position. In fact I think sticking a pole full of wet underwear is more dangerous than placing the mop in that position. I still haven't talked about wet jeans.

I look out of the window, the other HDB blocks in the neighbourhood, 80% of the units place their mops in the same way. Did they receive the same warning notice?

quote of the day

Adam and Eve were nanotechnologists, they created everything from sperm, from DNA!
-- Physicist Andre Geim

hello modo

Because of a design work on hand, I'm trying out Luxology's modo 302.

When I fire modo up, the strange new interface is impressive (and complicated). I guess anyone new to SolidWorks would feel the same way too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since SolidWorks is more for solid modeling while modo is like surface modeling, it isn't that fair to compare the two.

I always find self-learning to be the most effective way to pick up a new software. So I tried to run the tutorials. After learning how to use the mouse (yes, you have to learn. what alt+LMB, ctrl+RMB, etc) I got stuck, cos the subsequent tutorials are in mp4 video format and somehow my computer can't play them. Contrast this to SolidWorks' microsoft style help and tutorials, the latter seems to be more convenient.

Since it is unlikely that I am depending on modo for my rice bowl, I don't see the need to buy a textbook at the moment. Oh, they did include a 400+ page manual with the installation though.

Ah, it felt like cooking in someone else's kitchen.

chillycraps is 3

On 3rd July, chillycraps (the blog, duh) turned 3 years old!

I don't usually care about dates, but recent events kind of make me look back at what I have done in the blogosphere. 3 years is not long, neither is it short. I know blogger friends who started blogging since 7-8 years ago. I know friends who still don't blog.

This stupid blog started out as a personal diary, recording stuff like how high I felt after watching a volleyball match, or spoilers for anime, or reviews for books and movies. Then slowly I started to write food for thoughts, asking questions in life. But afterall food for thoughts ain't edible. So are craps.

Then I began to write rubbish, noting down observations around me, giving my opinions that usually worth less than 2cents. As I progress in my engineering course, I start to inject things I learn in lectures into my blog. On one hand it makes engineering less boring, on the other hand when I look up more about the topic it helps me learn at the same time.

Er, anyone knows the half-life of excrement?

吃屁

The biggest blog war is here - Red Cliff Shit!

348 nominees,
10 finalists.
1 winner.


You can change the tide of war everyday.
Vote.

picnic at haw par villa

Went picnic at Haw Par Villa with fellow blogger friends yesterday and it was great fun!
For the high tech movable statues we have rinaz, mintea, arzhou, chillycraps, mr & mrs malique, dk, xizor, nicole and endoh.

We walked around the villa, took pictures, fed turtles and screamed at giant catfish, had great food, played Indian poker in which the one who lose had to finish one curry puff (I think I almost finished one whole box of curry puff. I almost went spastic). We cracked jokes, disturbed couples making out, sang cantonese song with malique, etc etc.

We didn't go to "hell" though, go in still have to pay entrance fee. =_= Nvm, go watch hellboy =P
 
 
 

crack propagation and human relations

Mechanical engineering and material science students study crack propagation and fracture mechanics as cracks are the common culprits in some of the most catastrophic disasters in the world.

When there is a crack, no matter how small it is, it grows (or propagates, a term that makes you sound more intelligent). There is no turning back and as the crack grows longer, the object becomes weakened and breaks apart.

You can try this experiment at home. Take a piece of cloth, try to tear it into 2 with your bare hands. Difficult? Now, take a pair of scissors and make a small cut somewhere in the mid span. Try tearing the piece of cloth apart. Easier? Thanks to the crack.

So what do engineers do about cracks? They either grind the materials off together with the crack if the crack is shallow, or fill the crack up with filler materials, or totally change to a new part.

Isn't it like interpersonal relations? If there is a crack between 2 person (not literally), and you do nothing about it, the misunderstandings are going to break you further apart. Change to a new component? *scratch head* Engineering is easier than human relations.

Now, what about butt cracks?

(picture taken from http://www.trilion.com/)

bus rides are like one night stand

Bus rides (and train rides) are like one night stand.

One day, you see a pretty girl on the bus. You can see her, you can hear her, you can smell her (if you 2 are close enough), sometimes you can feel her (accidentally, I hope). Your eyes meet. Sometimes her arm accidentally rubs against yours. Sometimes you can feel her warmth radiating off the skin. But you don't know her. You don't mind knowing her. Maybe you want to know her. (and you want her to know you too)

The next day, you see the same girl, but different guy, same position, same situation. Same thoughts?

I have never tried one night stand. Sounds tiring. I have tried standing throughout the bus ride though.

quote of the day

nicholl: you very the pv leh!
chow: pv?
nicholl: perverted.... pressure volume!

pressure volume as in the famous ideal gas equation PV=nRT, or the PV diagram.
Nicholl graduated from NUS Mechanical Engineering, specialising in Energy and Thermal Process.

See that's the kind of conversation you have when you put 2 mechanical types together.

(had a great coffee session with Meder, Alex and Nicholl, my climbing gang. Meder just came back from Zurich and is here for a conference. Alex and Nicholl are still Alex and Nicholl. Nicholl kept staring at me. And call me perverted?)

time fountain at suntec

Have you seen the small fountain at Suntec City Mall? (the small indoor one, not the gigantic Guinness record outdoor one) Have you wondered how come the water droplets seem to be suspended in mid air? Or sometimes even moving up?

So the other day a friend and I were at the fountain and discussing how it works. The computer engineering graduate was saying something about beads moving up or something, the mechanical engineering undergraduate was saying something about the light. I couldn't convince him (neither could I confuse him), so I said I'll go back and blog about it. I saw the same display at the Hong Kong Science Museum a few weeks ago.

Firstly, it's water. Real water with the chemical formula H2O. Then you need strobe lights, lights that go on and off. Those who studies vibration may know what a stroboscope is. So you start dripping water and record the frequency (or time lapse between each droplet), then you adjust the strobe lights to flash at the same frequency. As such, the light will keep shining at the water at the exact same position, but different droplet. This creates the illusion that the droplet is suspended in mid air. Now, increase the frequency of the flash (ie, shorten the time between each flash) and you will see the droplets moving up. If you have sensitive eyes you can kind of see the flashes, but since the frequency is quite high, it is not that obvious. The frequency of the dripping is quite high too, as such it appears like a continuous stream of water.

It is sometimes referred to as "time fountain" cos you can "stop" time by suspending the water droplets, or "go back" in time when the water droplets "move up". Do a search on google and you may find some interesting clips with dye.

Where's the time machine?

long john, short (of) change

Yesterday I was ordering food at Long John Silver's. It wasn't peak hour lunch time yet, so the place wasn't crowded. I ordered a set meal, $5.50, I gave the cashier a $10 note. He told me he didn't have change. Neither do I.

It wasn't like me paying for $5.50 fast food with a $100 note, or me taking public bus with a $10 note and asking the bus driver for change. I always thought they start a new day's business with fresh supply of coins and notes in the cash register? (yeah, maybe he could have given me 4 dollars worth of 10 cents coins)

So I stood there, took a straw and sipped from my coke. In my mind I said "don't make your problem my problem (ie don't make me look for other customers for change)" But I didn't make things difficult for the cashier. So he asked me to go back with my food first, and he would settle with his manager.

I didn't mind the waiting, somemore I had my food and lots of office ladies around.

hvac asia 2008

If you are into HVAC (heating, ventilation, air-conditioning), thermodynamics, heat transfer and the sort, HVAC Asia 2008 may be of interest to you. You will get the chance to see latest products and technologies in the relevant area. As long as people need air-con and refrigerator, they will need HVAC engineers.

Date: 2-4 July 2008
Venue: Singapore Expo Hall 3

Thanks mavis for the tip-off!