asking for trouble

They say there's no stupid question. But what about a stupid person asking questions?

Recently I saw forum letters and other articles talking about the "questioning culture" in Singapore. They say that local students don't like to sit at the front rows during seminars, and they lack an eagerness to ask questions during Q&A session. On the contrary, foreign students can be seen queuing up behind the mics and such. Oh, an article from a foreign student also said that he receives funny look/stares when he asks question during class, cos the local students feel that he is delaying their class dismissal.

No doubt asking questions is an important process in learning, but the one who asks also has to have a bit of sensitivity. I certainly can understand the grumbles from the other students in the above case, the sheer thought of the long queues at the canteen can turn you off. And if you are in the working world, how about your boss calling a meeting at 6pm?

Also, I observe that some students ask questions in class for the sake of asking, as if they are showing off how much they know about the topic. It was ironic when the lecturer moved on to tougher topics and those students went mute, cos they seriously know nuts about what to show off.

Maybe it's nice to share the questions with the class, but when everyone is eager to move on with the syllabus, or overly eager for the lesson to end, then I think it's wise to settle the question after class.

iron boy

Ok this is one funny video clip I saw.


It's not just any spiderman or superman suits for kids, it has a circuit box at the back and some awesome weaponry. Read more about it here

I just find it so cute. Kids are dangerous nowadays.

quote of the day

ok, all pants (pens) down.
-- invigilator (which was also our lecturer) at the end of the 2-hour paper

My first paper of the semester and it was a postgrad module. -_-"

What kind of questions can you expect?

One question asked, is dog's vision a lot better than human vision.

And a coursemate of mine said, yes, 'cos dogs can see ghost.

Alright, next time I must remember to check the examiner's religion.

examination ay08/09

It's the time of the semester again and I will be sitting for my first paper for this semester tomorrow.

All the best to those sitting for exams!
(and to those sitting in the same exam hall taking the same papers as me, good luck. 'cos my force field will be harassing you)

Having a countdown clock ticking right to the second really helps to put some urgency in me. I'm having 3 written papers this semester and my mother has been complaining that the university is cheating the money. My father complains whenever I have anything less than a 5-day week. It just doesn't work that way...

pet preforms

Plastics are one type of materials that mechanical engineers deal with. PET or polyethylene terephthalate is a common plastic material found in many daily products. A good example is our PET bottle for drinks.

I came across this thing called PET Preforms, which I find quite interesting. Basically it’s used for making bottles by reheating it and then blow mould it into the desired shape of the bottle. It comes in the shape of a short, thick-walled test tube, with the neck and the screw thread ready-made in the end state. So all the manufacturer needs to do is to blow the body into the desired shape. Ah, so that saves manufacturer the step of making the neck and the threads with a separate process.

anime festival asia 08

I just came back from the Anime Festival Asia 08 (AFA08) held at Suntec Singapore International and Exhibition Centre. The turnout was quite good, I thought I could avoid the queue by going late, but the queue still stretched to the other end of the concourse. When I left the place, the queue was still that long. But at least the flow was fast, so it was still ok.

AFA08 was quite similar to comicon08, maybe because in both events Animax is involved. Basically you see lotsa toy booths and cosplayers there for the different anime characters. (damn it, I think some people thought I was cosplaying for Keroro Gunso (ケロロ軍曹). I just happened to be wearing a green vietnamese T-shirt with a yellow star.) Bandai ate up quite a big portion of the hall, with exclusive launch of 1/60 Gundam Exia Clear TRANS-AM version, among others. Oh now I know why Gundam Exia got defeated in Gundam 00, the mobile suit is too hot and stuffy (refer to photo below with cosplayer)

To be honest I'm a bit disappointed. I think a lot of good anime producers such as Gonzo and Studio Ghibli have been left out. As such, visitors were presented with a very narrow scope of the anime industry. Maybe it's commercial stuff. And the Gundam booth was also... well.. let's say I have seen better dioramas in smaller events in other countries.

The event is still on tomorrow (Sunday).

make a gas with centralization

One of the worst things that can happen while cooking is to run out of LPG gas. Yeah, the bottle grows legs.

Previously when you want to order the gas, you have to call the shop, tell them your unit number, tell them what size you are buying, ee ee oh oh, then the shop will call the deliveryman, then the deliveryman will deliver the bottled gas to you. Sometimes it took hours before the deliveryman came, and sometimes you could see the deliveryman drinking coffee at the coffee shop downstairs while you are waiting for the gas. So to remove some of the extra loop, we asked for the deliveryman's handphone number and from then on we ordered gas from him direct. Still, he had to take his coffee break, right?

Recently they have centralized everything. Call it merger or pooling of resources, or pressure from a particular taxi company that sells gas (or the other way round). So now when we want to order gas, we call this call centre. All I have to say is "I want gas" and they know your unit number and the size that you want, thanks to caller-ID (It's pretty stupid, which household will order those man-size bottle?). And within minutes, you can see the blue bottle at your doorstep, with the deliveryman of course. Their efficiency can match calling 999.

And so, that's the advantage of centralization.

what are our unions doing?

Nowadays when we flip open the newspaper, almost every other day we see words like "layoff", "retrenchment". This reminds me of a report in the October 29 issue of Professional Engineering magazine:

JCB workers cut own pay to save 350 jobs in UK

Thousands of production workers at JCB have taken pay cuts to save jobs at the firm.

More than 2,500 members of trade union GMB have voted in favour of working shorter weeks to stop 350 people losing their jobs at JCB’s seven UK plants.
GMB entered talks with the construction equipment manufacturer after news that the company needed to reduce output at its UK factories by 19% because of a downturn in orders.

The move reduces the number of redundancies to 150 instead of 500. As a result, staff stand to lose £50 a week and will work 34-hour weeks for a minimum of six months.

JCB chief executive officer Matthew Taylor said: “The ballot result shows the tremendous unity among the JCB workforce and a great team spirit, which we applaud.

“They have looked after the needs of one another, rather than the needs of the individual and that is to be commended.”

Keith Hodgkinson, GMB organiser, said: “I am delighted we have been able to save 350 jobs.

“The vote shows the social solidarity of trades union members in action.”

While we always think that trade unions in Europe like to go on strike and cripple the countries' economy, but they fight for the workers.

Now what are the trade unions doing in this part of the world? Are they doing enough? Have they done enough?
(and does anyone recall the particular incident involving pilots of a local airlines?)

Kunio Okawara will be in town

Hey Gundam fans out there, Kunio Okawara (大河原 邦男) will be in Singapore this Saturday (November 22) at the Anime Festival Asia 08.

Okawara is a mechanical designer for Japanese animes, including the famous RX-78-2 Gundam. He's like, THE man for mecha designs. On a sidenote, my first Bandai Gundam model was the High Grade 1/144 RX-78 Gundam, that was when I was 8 years old.

The one-day ticket to the AFA08 is S$5. Anyone going?

google sketchup 7

Google has recently launched the new release of Google SketchUp 7. For those of us who can't afford a CAD software, this may be a good point to start CADding.

One of the new features is the dynamic components. As seen in the clip above, the software is smart enough to add steps to a flight of stairs, or add racks to a bookshelf when you extend its height. Smart features may be the way to go, but somehow I still prefer to have some manual control over things I draw. Even with conventional CAD package I seldom use the mirror function or the pattern function. Guess it's just personal preference.

Here is another clip.

I'll take some time to play with it.

presentation slides

Now that the semester is coming to an end, the whatever project presentation should be completed by now.

I don't really like doing presentation. Other than the fact that I have stage fright, preparing the slides can be a pain in the ass. On one hand you want to include information in the slides, on the other hand you don't want to bore the audience. But then, I guess doing presentation is part and parcel of being students and perhaps, engineers.

A while ago SlideShare held a World's Best Presentation Contest. I looked through some of the slides and really, there are things that we can take home, be it presentation style or knowledge presented. Just slides and, wow.

Let's look at the winner for technology category.

us�able

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web2.0 internet)

Some of the still slides are more entertaining than youtube clips.

chicken where got so big

I was at the Food Safari at Suntec Singapore yesterday. Erm no, I wasn't part of the exhibit.

So I was at the döner kebab stall, waiting for my chicken kebab. I overheard a son (primary school kid) telling his father that it's chicken, and guess what the father said?

(in Mandarin) "Wait long long,
chicken where got so big?"

-_-"

I wonder how many children in this world are mis-educated in the same way.

where to stop

The above is a satellite image of a bus stop, with a bus in the bay.

Now imagine the bus is not there. When you want to flag a taxi or when you want to drop off from a car, do you go to the cross on the left, or the cross on the right?

The thing I observe is that, when another vehicle stops upstream, it blocks the bus from entering the bus stop. And if so happens a bus cuts in at an angle leaving its tail blocking the vehicle, you can't turn out. Kudos to those with taxi meter ticking. On the other hand, if the vehicle stops downstream, not only does it allow the bus to enter the bus stop and do whatever loading unloading business, most of the time the bus driver is able to make calculation and maneuver the bus out even with another vehicle in front. And if you are trying to flag a taxi, downstream usually provides better view of vision.

Ok, this is coming from a bus commuter and not taxi commuter. Maybe they have another point of view.

bdsm education

Today's my paper ran a report on a video clip of an ACJC student being tied up and stuffed with food for her birthday "celebration" [2008, November 14, A4] I haven't seen the video clip itself, but base on what was being reported, it sure sounds like BDSM. Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism.

Maybe because I'm a nerd or because I came from the so-called nerd school, I have never seen such things happening. So I was pretty shocked when friends from other schools told me that they did things on unpopular classmates such as throwing their school bag out of the window, pouring everything out from their pencil case and make them pick them up, etc. Do you guys really do this kind of things?

Maybe they really wanted the birthday girl to have an unforgettable birthday, but they surely had gone overboard. An overdose of porn maybe? Now, how do we put the society's future on them?

And somoeone said it's "part and parcel of growing up". Huh? What's next? Syringe and pills? Campus shooting? Even the worst kind of treatment I went through in the army, they treated us with the basic respect for humanity.

The paper reported the principal saying "that the student was prepared for the celebration, and that there was no malice or bullying involved." Did the principal just tell everyone that her students practice BDSM willingly and openly? Isn't that like, worse?

ivle team

Yesterday I was trying to upload my term paper to the workbin in IVLE (Integrated Virtual Learning Environment, NUS stuff), but it kept giving me error messages. So I tried with a different browser, but still didn't work. I tried again at another timing, still to no avail.

Luckily it wasn't the deadline yet (phew, I don't usually submit assignment on the deadline itself, so..), if not I would have "xyz" them. So I submitted a feedback form to them, and at the same time was prepared to try again when I was in school today. To my surprise, I received a call on my mobile phone from the IVLE Team at a few minutes past 6pm yesterday, asking me about the problem. I swear I didn't provide them my mobile number, but had it been an urgent matter, of course I would appreciate their initiative of looking up for my number.

Still not resolved, so another guy from the Centre for Instructional Technology took over, and emailed me while I was sleeping. -_-" By the time I was reading the email, the issue was resolved.

The point I'm trying to make is, while many-a-times we like to complain, we should also give credit for jobs well done.

can throw, throw can

Recently I received an email from the university's Office of Environmental Sustainability, who conducted an inspection on the recycling bins around campus. Part of their findings is as follows:

Recycling bins in the Faculty of Engineering have the highest level of contamination. These bins contain wastes that cannot be recycled or recyclable wastes were thrown into the wrong bins. For example, Styrofoam food containers in “Paper” bin, paper cups in “Plastic” bins and “Can” bins.

*shrug* Maybe we are testing the power of the rubbish sorting system at the waste management company.

Oh I saw this entertaining clip on throwing aluminium cans.

Are these guys from NBA or Major League Baseball or something? Maybe we should import such talents who have pinpoint accuracy when binning.

life in plastic

Do you have CorningWare at home?

Well, I have, in fact a few, and I find it a fantastic cooking ware. Its transparent glass lid allows you to see your food being cooked, while the pot (or Casserole?) itself comes in different sizes. The big one is really big, as can be seen in the packaging art, they packed some crab inside and cook. How cruel. But the big size also brings a problem. My house isn't called Cold Storage, and my fridge isn't that gigantic. The pot itself is big, pot + lid? *roll eyes*

And so CorningWare now has the accessory plastic lid, for freezing, microwaving, etc. But no direct flame please thank you. I've bought 2 and they snap fit nicely. The plastic lids are made in USA and are NOT made of melamine, so...

Now I'm really curious about Corning's design process. I'm pretty sure they didn't start with the plastic lid in the original package.

i have the cart

Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with a certain card by a certain association.

transport with keropok

A few days ago I had a nice email conversation with a blogger friend. (ok, it sounds kinda primitive, nowadays few would exchange email unless it's email war) He just came back from his Europe trip and he shared with me what he observed on the transport system there. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing here :)

He said that in the trains in London, people also don't shift to the middle of the carriage. That sounds like a global phenomena, isn't it? :P He also had the chance to ride the new London buses after they got rid of the routemasters. He sounds impressed.

Oh and he mentioned the Oyster Card, which is similar to our ezlink card. It seems to have more friendly features than ours though.

It is interesting to note that both Hong Kong's Octopus and London's Oyster Card make use of seafood name, and my experience with the Octopus was fantastic. Maybe Singapore should come up with the Crab Card!

ji bei on bus

Just now I was on the bus to town. At the bus stop opposite the National Library Building, there was another bus at the bus bay, so my bus stopped at a little before the bus stop, and opened the exit for passengers to alight.

There was this guy, his friend had already gotten off the bus, but he was still fumbling for his ezlink card to tap out. The bus driver didn't wait for him to get his card out, closed the exit door and stepped on the accelerator. That kid hissed a "ji bei" (which is 几杯, erm, "how many cups" in Mandarin, or a hokkien vulgarity) and pressed the bell, and the driver shouted back "还没有到站喇!" ("haven't reached the stop lah", in Mandarin) After moving that few metres of distance, the driver let that kid off, whose face was already red with fright and embarrassment.


The look on his face was priceless, when he looked at his friend outside the speeding off bus through the windows. It was like those love story when a guy would run after the bus, trip and fall and scream the passenger's name.

work is good

Time crawls really slowly when you have nothing to do during working hour, especially if you are doing retails.

Just now I was queuing up at the checkout at the supermarket, when I spotted an empty lane. The cashier had that bored look on her face. So I went over, and immediately she lit up. I'm sure it wasn't my look. So I returned the smile, and had a short chat. (not really a chat, but asking me if I would want to apply for membership that sort of thing.)

Getting paid for doing nothing, isn't really that attractive in reality. Of course, the other extreme is to work like a dog, and somehow time flies faster towards knock off hour.

vigilant bus passenger

Yesterday I was at the lower deck of a double-decker bus, and this pretty girl sitting opposite me kept looking at me. (or was it stare?) I wasn't my normal self yesterday. No, I didn't go over and touch her, what I mean is, normally I don't wear a cap but I was wearing one yesterday. So together with my big backpack, I fit the description of a terrorist as portrayed in the terrorist advertisement.

The girl has long hair with clip, bespectacled, wearing blue Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt and jeans, black tote bag. She alighted at Bishan Junction 8 bus stop. If you see any person matching the description, please inform ME!

But when she alighted, I heard only one beep from her card, most probably she isn't a student. And I saw the photo in her wallet, looks like her boyfriend and her...

Ok, now who's the terrorist and who's vigilant?

over singapore 50 years ago

Because of the urban land use project for my module GEK2503 Remote Sensing for Earth Observation, I have been referring a lot to the book Over Singapore 50 Years Ago by Brenda Yeoh and Theresa Wong.

This big book basically has tons of old aerial photos of various parts of Singapore. It is a joy to read this book (minus the fact that I had project report to write). It is like, you know some buildings have been around for quite some time, eg the bridges along Singapore River, the shophouses in Telok Ayer, etc, and chances are you walk past these daily. But when you look at the old photos, you will suddenly imagine how this exact spot used to be like 50 years ago.

For example, the railway bridge at Bukit Timah. That metallic bridge is a beauty, and I see it everyday when waiting for bus at the bus stop facing it. However, I didn't know how it looked like 50 years ago, when Yeo's factory was there, when King Albert Park didn't have McD, etc.

Those who work in CBD, what does this look like to you? (pg60 of book)

The book is available at NLB public libraries, Singapore collection.

get the facts right

A few days ago I shared about what a cabin crew friend told me about the fridge for corpse onboard an airliner. Then a reader left a comment telling me to "get the facts right". This, is not the correct tone when leaving comments here. If I had the chance I would have tossed him/her into the turning blades of a Rolls Royce Trent 900 engine.

But I am nice. (and that's why people take advantage and leave nasty comments)

So I emailed the airlines to ask them about this corpse locker. The customer services manager's reply is as follows: "We note your enquiry and would like to inform you that we do not have a special locker for such purposes."

Ahem. So how?

That's the thing. What qualify as facts? Seeing is believing, but I have never seen so many things, so should I disregard them as facts? Earth is round, yeah right, send me into space and let me see it with my own eyes, then I will believe. Does it work this way?

And when it comes to official reply, don't believe wholesale. For my project we emailed a particular local bus company about the air-con, and they say their buses have "climatic control". LJ understand!

And get the facts right, my blog doesn't talk about serious stuff to start with, so don't come here shooting every damn word I write. Now this is a fact cos I'm the one writing this.

EDIT: spaceactionhero shared with me this article from CNN on Anonymous anger rampant on Internet

cnn did a princess leia hologram

I can't really be bothered about the US Presidency election. Whoever won, I still have my exams and term paper deadlines.

What bothers me is CNN did a hologram reporting!



Can we have teleport next?

naming ceremony

Sometimes when we blog, we talk about gatherings, meetings, events, happenings, etc. Then some names will appear, some with hyperlinks to blogs, and sometimes we include photographs.

I realize that doing so may not be something that they like. They may not want their face to appear, they may not want their name disclosed, or they may not want their employers to find out that they have been talking to crappy big-mouthed bloggers.

It is not the first time that people request me to take down contents from my blog. Sometimes they ask nicely, sometimes they demand with that whole-world-owes-me face. Sometimes it can be a battle between upholding your blogger's dignity vs losing your friend. It's not about intending malice or cooking up stories, nowadays facts can be harmful. Things like "I had dinner with miss spicycrap last night" can make people unhappy as well.

Oh, and some friends are very paranoid about talking to me in real life. They are scared that I will write about them in my blog. One guy told me he reads my blog regularly cos he wants to see if I have written anything bad about him. -_-" I thought not naming them would help, but it doesn't. They will own up themselves by telling others that I wrote about them or replying to the entry, when I didn't even say who or mention name.

Oh well. it seems safer to talk about non-living things.

presentation that tips the table

Remember this bus? So our project group did the presentation yesterday evening to the adult audience of our postgrad classmates.

Our project was on improving the public bus interior using a human factors approach. This topic successfully connected to the audience as most of us are daily users of bus services ourselves. Interesting questions were raised during the Q&A session and I was trying to *ahem*smoke*ahem* my way through (why all must shoot my portion?). The lecturer made us sound like some dark horse when he said he was praying for our group after hearing our topic presentation earlier in the semester. He said we needed a project that can tip the table. The table is tipped.

We tried to keep to the impossible timing of 10 minutes for the presentation, which was a good thing cos too long a presentation may bore the audience. We used a very product design approach for the presentation flow, and the 3D graphics and rendering surely wow-ed the class. After the presentation some classmates approached us asking what software did we use. Now then I understand photo rendering really adds dimension to 3D graphics. That's why most CAD softwares come with rendering add-on nowadays.

Kudos to my groupmates!

*nb: the above image is the intellectual property of our project group. Any infringement will result in pimples growing on your butt or worse consequences*

food for thought

• Will you give up something which you enjoy doing, because your loved ones don't like you doing it? (can be smoking, drinking, anything. Or a career of your choice, job opportunity. Or even someone you like.)
  


• Now, should I give up kayaking cos everytime I go, my mother feels extremely worried?
  

I first kayaked some 9 years ago. I have a 2 stars qualification. I am a confident swimmer. I am a confident kayaker, but I am not yaya. I always mentally go through the drills. I always check my equipment.

But when my brother told me how worried my mother was while I was out in the sea on stormy Saturday, I really thought, maybe I should stop making people worry.

osim singapore corporate triathlon 2008

I came back from helping out at the OSIM Singapore Corporate Triathlon 2008 this morning as safety canoeist.

Prior to the event, I thought the organization has gone one level up in volunteers management. They have prepared an E-briefing notes for volunteers, with information such as how to handle media and etc. I was impressed. Effective volunteers management will greatly enhance the volunteers' effectiveness in events.

However, on the event day itself, something seemed worse than previous years/events. I arrived early, but there was a long queue at the volunteer's tent, volunteers waiting to sign in. I waited close to 15 minutes before my turn. I realize the problem lied with the one behind the desk. There was a lot of idling and the staff could act like he was daydreaming when there was a long queue in front of him. Anyway, the queue wasn't only at the volunteer's tent. There were long queues at the body marking station for the competitors as well.

When I left my house, it was pouring quite heavily. Stormy sea isn't fun. Throughout the event, the sea was slightly more choppy than before. The organizer canceled the 750m swim course and switched it to 200m. With the shorter swim course, there were still cases of competitors seeking help from jetski and canoes. One lady had to rest on my bow twice cos she was tired. Had a little chat with her before I got annoyed by the other kids ramming their kayaks into me.

Many things have popped up in my mind and I wonder if I should help out in similar events in future...