on the first day of new year

I told people that I went back to campus on the first day of Chinese New Year. Their responses were along the line of "WTH?!" Nah, I am not that hardworking (neither do I love my university that much).

On the first day of every Chinese New Year, my family would indulge in some family time ourselves in the form of outings. It could be a trek in the forest, a trip to an island, and this year we went to the Southern Ridges. We didn't go for the whole Southern Ridges. Started at NUS Science Faculty car park (still a park right?), we went to Science Park, then Kent Ridge Park, ending at Hort Park. Our lunch was nice nasi briyani at Alexandra Village Food Centre.

I guess it was nice to soak in the wilderness when most of the time in the year we are drown in the concrete world. Sitting in Kent Ridge Park, looking at wild squirrels play (we saw 4!), enjoying the colourful flowers at Hort Park, it's just different from the crowded florist at Thomson Road or Sentosa Flowers. I don't particularly like crowds.

I am very tempted to talk about the mechanical mirrors at Hort Park, but I'll just leave it here this time.

mechanical chinese new year

Yesterday I had a lo-hei session with some of my coursemates from mechanical engineering. I'm not sure if they really cut the carrot for yu sheng using CNC machine, but I don't think I tasted any coolant liquid.

It was really nice lazing around at xin's house, talking about final year project (yeah, so fun), gossiping, telling engineering p0rn, etc etc. This kind of laid-back moment is hard to find.

Thanks for organizing, guys!

Related:
捞鱼生
CNY Gathering
Lo Hei cum Tata's Bdae celeb!

english new year

I was having a little chat with my lecturer about new year. He is an Englishman, and he told me that during their New Year, they also have family gatherings with their relatives, cousins who haven't met in a year, then they will catch up with one another, trying to show off that they are doing better than the rest, etc etc. I was kind of surprised they have this culture as well.

That sounds pretty much like us Chinese, some will wear the thickest of their gold chain (like bicycle chain) and the biggest of their diamond, their closest replica of branded handbags, and show off to other families during Chinese New Year.

This kind of reminds me of some Asians having this mentality that Asian moral values are superior over Western's, blah blah blah... another cow crap. Just because the Westerners do it and term it differently, does that mean they don't have their own values? It's just like how the commies term it "market economy" when they practice capitalism.

By the way, my European classmate watched the show at Chinatown during Chinese New Year's Eve and he found it boring. He said the TV artistes were performing on the stage and the spectators just stood there with no reaction. And when the whole thing ended, everyone just made their way to the MRT station, no celebration no nothing. Maybe he was expecting some partying?

*shrug* Such is a thing called culture.

rake angle for shredding carrot

My friend was asking me how to shred carrot for Chinese New Year yu sheng. So I suggested using potato peeler. But she said the end product wasn't as thin.

I told her, the rake angle was wrong.

Too much manufacturing engineering.... But hey at least I didn't suggest using carbide cutter with coolant on right?

revenge of the red packet

Continuing from last year, let's talk about red packet again.

Last year that auntie gave me S$2 right? This year her kids got S$2 each. Call it adjustment according to market force (and not revenge). But when you think of it, even in Chinese wedding they will record down how much you put inside the red packet and next time when it's your turn to marry, they will pay the same amount. Not very fair, cos it neglects time-value of money.

Then over dinner, I saw her husband digging into the dishes and searching for food. How lack of manners! And he snatched all the expensive food such as abalone and scallop, until the host girl couldn't stand it and picked some onto my bowl.

And then another auntie, this time round she disturbed another family for chores such as helping her log on to airline website to check ticket price everyday. This is so dumb ok! And every year her daughter didn't show face for Chinese New Year gathering, but still end up getting the red packet from other familes. What's this? Minimum must give well wishes lah! Why make it so easy to get money?

New wave of grumpiness for new year.

quote of the day

mechanical girls don't go shopping.
-- a year 3 girl from NUS Mechanical Engineering

This is cow crap ok! I have gone out with girls from the department and they pulled me to the malls, trying on shoes, choosing lingerie.. (I didn't choose, ok!) While many think that we guys are mean to the girls in engineering faculty, now this is what the girls have to say about themselves.

In fact, I think shopping is important for engineering students. You need to go to hardware shops, go to suppliers, or just simply observing what are the products available in the market, their strengths and weaknesses, design features, etc.

The least the girls should go down to the workshop and operate the milling machines.

happy chinese new year!

It's the Chinese New Year, here I would like to wish everyone,

黑皮牛液!!
(pronounced as "Happy New Year", while the words mean "black skin cow juice". Doesn't make sense, but nevermind.)

The mascot for this year seems to be cow crap (aka bull shit). Besides having high calorific value to be used as fossil fuel (and causing global warming), its Chinese name "牛屎" rhymes with "牛市" which means "bull market" Don't we need a bull market? And it's the year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac.

Just moo it.

engaging bloggers

I think last week some printed media was talking about companies engaging bloggers for publicity for their products.

I myself do write product reviews sometimes. Well, most of the time companies did not approach me to write stuff for their products, but rather, whenever I see something interesting, I would just pen down my thoughts and share. Afterall, I'm just trying to apply what I was taught. I'm from the Product Design specialization (although I don't seem like one).

A lot of bloggers do reviews out of interest. For example, when I am deciding to buy a product, usually I would do a search online, and see what others think of the product, what are the bugs to look out for, and whether there are better alternatives. These are first hand users' experience, so it's as real as it can get. And most of the time, they aren't paid for that.

From marketing point of view, engaging bloggers do seem like an attractive deal. You don't usually have to spend too much on the campaign, compared with sponsoring product and letting celebrities pose against a backdrop. Of course, some products you really have to look for celebrities to wear them on their body. However, bloggers can be a pain in the arse for brandname as well. Some can whack you mercilessly, while others may end up recommending your rival brands to readers. Honesty can hurt. You also need to find the correct bloggers to engage. For example, how would you feel if a health food brand engages overweight bloggers? Of course, it also depends on how professional the blogger is to decide whether to agree to be engaged. I for one don't write entrepreneur stuff, cos I know nuts about it. K, I know nuts about a lot of things too. I've got adult products and casino approaching me -_-" NO THANKS!

The new media sure seems exciting.
(actually I want to share about another publicity stunt I saw, will talk about it another time :))

a modo mio

The other day I was flipping through a design magazine, then I came across an advertisement from Lavazza about their A Modo Mio.

The A Modo Mio is a home coffee system that makes use of capsuled coffee, pop it into the Saeco machine, and then you will get nice Lavazza espresso. Don't you find the machine cute?

The concept sure seems like the Nespresso from Nestle. Honestly I have never tried it, but I have bad experience with it. Before the Nespresso was launched in Singapore, I was in a department store in Hong Kong and there was a booth promoting the Nespresso. The promoter ignored me. (don't worry, I still drink Nescafe)

Oh, just a note, the A Modo Mio machine cannot accept Nespresso capsule. If on a particular day you don't feel like George Clooney and decide for a change, you have to change the machine. Can't they just standardize it?

autodesk new year

The guys at Autodesk Asia are quite sweet, they sent me a Chinese New Year greeting. (click on image to watch)

It kind of showcases their line of products and I find it quite cute. Had they sent me AutoCAD drawings...

yes we can

For a political idiot like me, the simpliest wish with the new US President taking office, is for the world economy to recover. Obama is no superman, but I'm sure things can only get better with the new blood.

The GeoEye-1 satellite captured some nice photographs of the inauguration at Washington D.C.. The other image captured the crowd strecthing to Washington Monument.


Feels like the satellite scenes in the movie Enemy of The State. Well, hope Mr Obama doesn't end up becoming enenmy of the state.

heavy metal - mwg zinc ii

Woohoo, I just got my dirty fingers on the MWg Zinc II. Made by the same guys from O2 Asia, the Zinc II is the cheapest of its class around.

Weighing at 185g, it feels quite heavy on the hand, maybe the pants will drop if you put it in the pants pocket. It seems like the weight comes from the 1530mAh lithium polymer battery, which can last for 10 days on standby. But it's quite scary that the casing feels warm during normal usage. Comes with a sliding qwerty keypad, but it's not the normal hard keys that we are used to. Oh, the USB socket feels loose too. The good designs are that you don't need to open up the back cover to retrieve the memory card, and also side buttons are not made of the irritating rubber which wears off pretty fast.

It runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, which requires some setting up and rebooting on first run. Symbian S60 seems more convenient.

But at that price (S$98), I guess it's worth the effort to adapt.
(btw, I don't own the set. I was only in charge of unboxing it)

bio-inspiration for the lazy spring cleaner

Chinese New Year is around the corner, have you done your Spring cleaning yet?

I'm not a very hardworking or enthusiastic person when it comes to house cleaning, but when it's the louvre windows along the corridor, I'm quite particular about keeping it dust-freely clean. I mean, it's the first impression people get when they see your house. And contrasting with my next door neighbour's forever snowy window panes, I'm so envious that my mother has such good son. (ahem) It is so tempting to write and draw stuffs on my neighbour's windows.

So while wiping the windows, the lazy (but smarter) side of me was thinking, could the designer have incorporated bio-inspiration / biomimicry into the window panes? There is this thing called the lotus-effect. You look at lotus, it grows in muddy dirty pond but its leafs are always so spotlessly clean. I've talked about it here before, so is it possible to apply a nano-technology layer on the window panes, so that next time when they get dusty, all we have to do is to spray water on them and the dust will come off?

*shrug* maybe Teflon can help.

quote of the day

then people never kacao you you kacao me lah! you clever lah!
primary school kids on bus 14

The kids were like screaming on top of the engine sound on the double decker bus. Sometimes when you are not in a bad mood, it's fun to listen to kids talk.

the radio and the hairdryer

During GEK1513 Wireless Communications lecture, the lecturer was telling us how to generate wireless signal using a power saw. Then from a paper bag, he took out a AM/FM radio, and a hairdryer.

He said, he's going to turn on the hairdryer and see if we can still hear the radio station's transmission. I was like, what the, your hairdryer is already so freaking noisy, even a fire engine's siren also will be drown out! Then when he switched to AM band, surprisingly, the radio was able to amplify the hairdryer's signal! (I believe the mic wasn't on)

Electromagnetic interference can be scary.

and the cold wind blows

Do you feel that it has been quite windy in Singapore lately? Must be the Volvo Ocean Race that brought the wind along. (or perhaps, the other way round? The wind brought the boats here)

Talking about the VOR, did you go down to watch it? My family went down to East Coast to watch the in-port race, and my university's faculty club actually organized a visit to the Race Village at Sentosa. Too bad both times I wasn't able to make it. But from the news pictures, I think the boats really look cool, especially Puma and Green Dragon's sails. (ok, starting to sound bimbotic) Of course there are lots of physics and naval architecture involved.

I've been seeing the phrase "put Singapore on the map" very often. Yes we have all the international races and events, but what's the use if the locals aren't interested? We have foreigners traveling the world just to catch and watch every stop of the VOR, same as people who travel around to follow F1 races. These are international standard competitions. Now, do we have locals who travel around the stadiums in Singapore to catch S-League football matches?

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but wouldn't it be nice if we start talking about the being-on-the-map when the locals actually appreciate it? I believe it's slowly warming up, now that even the local Chinese newspaper is reporting on the F1 more often than before. We have the hardware, now it's the software integration.

As for VOR, it would be nice if they had arranged for free shuttle bus from Harbourfront to the Race Village :)

hairy matter

My hair was getting messy and a while ago I went to my usual neighbourhood hair dresser for a hair cut. It was 16 or 17 days before Chinese New Year, some barber shops may have raised their price but I just wanted to make sure. So I pointed at the "$7" in bold and gigantic font size 500 pasted on the door, and ask if it's still $7.

$9. And rising as it gets nearer to the New Year.

No way am I going to pay S$9 for a hair cut!! That's close to 30% increment! I always thought they only raise the price 15 days before CNY?

Since the price had already gone up, I decided to wait for a few more days. The most I would go to the $10/10 minute shops. The price had gone up to $10 on Thursday.

Rather than paying $10 (or more) for what usually costs $7, I decided to give a try with the $10 shop. Hey, you are still getting $10's worth.

It was my first visit to such shop. First you insert the $10 note into the machine to get a card. The bad thing is, you can't change your mind once you have paid up. In traditional barber shop you can always walk out of the door if you decide not to wait. So it was my turn. The hair stylist handed me a long plastic box. I thought she was giving me something so I took it, then she said it was for my spectacles. =_= You know in those old barber shop, the barber would give you cigarette before cutting your hair. I thought it's the same thing :P

After getting my hair cut and my head sucked (or, a nicer word would be "vacuumed") it was a satisfied look on my face. I really like their concept, but I will revisit my neighbourhood hair dresser when the price drops back to $7 :P

(BTW I like the comb which is given to customer after the cut. It's made of combustible material. I haven't tested it yet.)

spring cleaning and climbing

Didn't go climbing cos the gang is busy, so instead, I did spring cleaning at home.

Come to think of it, climbing and spring cleaning have one thing in common: both require getting to hard-to-reach spots. And for me, I always have to climb up during spring cleaning.

I haven't reached the stage of wearing harness and hanging outside the house to clean the windows. That would be fun.

Who wants to belay me?

ntu students do backdoor entry

I think SBS Transit service 179 is the most efficient loading system I've seen.

Was on my way to my lab in NTU, and I don't usually visit that university during semester time. The queue for bus 179 at Boon Lay bus interchange proved to be spectacular, stretching for as long as 100 metre. You don't have to see the number "179" to get into the right queue. You just go for the longest queue and that's the one. Long stagnant queue is a problem. Long but fast moving queue isn't. The queue was moving so fast I didn't even have time to connect to wifi on my mobile phone.

Then next came the boarding part. The Volvo Olympian double decker bus opened both the entrance and exit for boarding, so you can literally do a backdoor entry. The ezlink cardreaders at the exit had been set to entry mode, so you can tap in from behind. Then come the question: what if you don't tap in and get free ride? Well... maybe NTU students are honest, or that service route is earning money like nobody's business, so they don't really care.

Frequency wise, maybe cos it's semester time, so you can see 179s head kissing tail. Got a feeling they don't even have a schedule.

Btw, on my way out I bumped into "cute NTU girl". This is like the nth time I bumped into her.

well articulated - bronco vs viking

Lately the local printed media has been very excited about ST Kinetics' Bronco All Terrain Tracked Carrier winning BAE Systems' BvS10 Viking Armoured All Terrain Vehicle in the contract to providing 100 vehicles to Royal Marines in Afghanistan.

Other than being reminded of the articulated buses on the road, it also reminds me of a situation where the disciple wins his master.

Why so? The Army first bought the Bv206 from Hägglunds. Hägglunds is now part of BAE Land Systems and the Bv206 is the predecessor of the BvS10. Later, ST Kinetics developed the Bronco, and started equipping The Army with it. And of course, Hägglunds / BAE came up with the BvS10 very much based on the Bv206S (which is the up armoured version of Bv206). If you look at the Bronco and the Viking (or even the earlier Bv206S), they look like twins. The problem is, I can't be certain who was born first.

Maybe this makes a good case study for new product development. I wonder if the master is unhappy with his disciple?

fyp interim

If you want to know how a student tried to be funny with his FYP presentation, here are his slides:

interim presentation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design polymers)

I merely finished saying the phrase "Good afternoon" when the examiner started to yawn. Hey, I already saved his misery by only using 10 minutes out of the 15 minutes quota.

And the good thing about showing nothing, is that the examiner can ask you nothing.

icumsa 45

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 =)

quote of the day too

hj: He rich leh
me: but he bought a 6 year old BMW
hj: I don't even have money to buy a 6 year old BMX!

hj and I talking about a lecturer.

quote of the day

We don't have mid-term exam. Some call it quiz, I think it sounds childish. Like "hey little Johnny, let's have a quiz!" I say no.
--Dr John Bauly, during MT4003 Engineering Product Development lecture

Had a good dose of English humour (he's an Englishman).
Oh and the year 3 batch of Product Design students seems to be quite large.

no more nyonya

I'm not talking about the drama Little Nyonya by MediaCorp TV. In fact I haven't watched a single episode of it. I'm talking about the Nyonya stall at NUS ENG/SDE canteen (aka Techno Edge) It's closed.

Opened only for a short stint of 1 semester, I haven't patronised it a single time, just like I haven't watched the drama a single time. (I have nothing against Nyonyas ok, I like the kueh) And even at the busiest of lunch hour, I haven't seen a queue there as well.

Throughout my 4 years in NUS Engineering, I've seen some interesting changes in the canteen. The kway chap stall is gone. The noodle stall changed to another noodle stall. The Japanese stall changed to the Nyonya stall, now change to a Japanese stall again. I'm not sure if it has got to do with tender or something, but some of these stalls were quite popular with the population, especially the original Japanese stall and the original noodle stall who refused to sell char kway teow during lunch hour. I wonder why they switch hands. Of course, the poor Nyonya stall was all thanks to "people's power".

Had they (the stall) held on a bit longer until the last episode (of the drama), maybe they could have caught on the Nyonya bandwagon. Maybe wrong move to open in Engineering where people just want to eat and go back to their equations.
(image from infabianswords.wordpress.com/)

quote of the day

If 2 ends meet, the length is infinity.
--A/P Ng CS, talking about telephone cable around the world during GEK1513 Wireless Communications-Past, Present and Future lecture

Now that's quite thought-provoking.

Normally I would have enjoyed this kind of lecture, but I guess I was lacking sleep thanks to FYP. Coffee from the canteen couldn't help either.

But there were cute girls in the class. :P

first day of last sem

Other than some usual morons from a particular tertiary institution along the bus route, my first day of school was pretty uneventful.

Quite happy to bump into many old friends around in campus, from civil engineering, mechanical (which you can subdivide into fluid guys, offshore guys, etc), and political science. It was quite fun that we would talk about current affair, such as which member of parliament got some enthalpy change, or imitating Dr Mahathir's "Coca-Cola speech".

Oh, and Final Year Project is the common pain in the ass. My presentation is tomorrow and my slides are hardly done. :P

defiance

It adds fuel for thoughts to watch the movie Defiance while they are having the conflict between Israel and Hamas at Gaza.

Starring Daniel Craig, the story is about 4 Jewish brothers escaping from the Nazi invasion of Poland. They gathered other Jews and built camps in the Belarussian forest. They lived in harsh condition, little food, bitter winters, and constantly on the lookout for Nazi German soldiers. In the process more than a thousand Jews were saved from the onslaught.

There is this quote from the movie. "We are hunted like animals, but we will not live like animals"

Now that's pride. And defiance.

gathering money

One amusing sight during dinner gatherings with friends, is when settling the bill.

It's either someone collects the money, then pay, or someone pays first, then collect from the participants. And if you are the one who is kind enough to pay first then collect from the rest, 2 things can happen: either you earn, or you end up paying more.

I've seen people underpaying their share cos they intentionally/unintentionally leave out the service charge and tax and their drinks, then they elegantly say "keep the change". *roll eyes*

That's why sometimes I enjoy it more when going to coffee shop or hawker centre. Each pays his own. Not everyone brings along his scientific calculator everywhere he goes and calculate to accuracy of 2 decimal places.

mutual respect

I think mutual respect has no age limits.

I was on SMRT bus service 851. Somehow this service is always filled with senior citizens, perhaps because the bus passes through old areas like Yishun, Ang Mo Kio, Little India, Rochor, Chinatown and Bukit Merah. Ok, I almost named the whole route.

I offered my seat to an old man who was standing. He kept thanking me as he settled into the seat. A few stops later, the passenger sitting beside him alighted, and he enthusiastically waved me over to take the seat, very much like good old friends. As I settled into the seat, we had a little chat. He told me he's 70+ years old, and it's tiring to stand for long bus journey. Blah blah blah.

When I reached my stop, I told him in Chinese, "我要下车了, 你慢慢坐" (I'm alighting here, you sit slowly. Ok very funny). "好的好的, 谢谢你呀, 小心点唷" (okok, thank you, watch out hor!-_-)

This is not a post trying to spread how kind and caring chillycraps-oh-mighty is. It is just that if my old man is in the same situation, I would wish that he can have a seat. Or, even myself 40-50 years down the road. Ok that's a very long bus ride.

I'm totally not into forced kindness. It makes me feel guilty whenever I genuinely want to sleep on the bus or train.

cheesecake on the wall

I had cheesecake for brunch. Ok, it's actually the name of a climbing route. Rock climbing routes usually have weird names.

Went climbing with the "UNSW" gang today. Although I only made 2 climbs, but somehow I feel quite satisfied, cos both were colour routes (rainbow is NOT a colour) and one was on the inclined wall. The gang has recently gotten their own harnesses. Seems like they are getting serious about climbing.

Climbing always makes me realize something in life. Today, I realize some meaning of trust. In climbing, you trust your own life into the hands of your belayer. It is more action than speech, I mean what is there to say other than "climbing" and "climb on"? I was belaying someone on the inclined wall, and he's significantly heavier than me. He brought along a sling cos he was afraid I would fly if he happened to fall or rest up on the wall. In the end both of us cleared the route.

Why am I always at the lighter end of the pulley?

don't judge a book by its cover: sony vaio p

All you horrible geeks keep talking about the Sony Vaio P lately. But have you seen what's inside?



Please don't neglect the inner beauty. Don't judge a book by (just) its cover.
What the hell, talking about computers feels like contraband items in my blog. I ain't even in computer engineering.

ikea's mjölkchoklad

If you think the Swedish meatball is the only edible thing worth looking at at Ikea, then you are missing out on others.
An example would be the milk chocolate.

I'm no expert in chocolates, but at S$2, it doesn't lose out to any other chocolate in the market. What I like about it, is its packaging. While I observe that most other brands of chocolate have at least 2 layers of defence, this one you only need to peel one layer before getting to the dark gold. Simplicity in packaging is the way to go, especially with sustainability and stuff.

And it's designed by Stockholm Design Lab. Now, is there anything in Ikea that isn't designed?

train at middle track

Sometimes when opportunity comes, we don't know how to grab.

I was waiting for a Southbound train at Ang Mo Kio MRT Station. When I reached the platform, there was an empty train sitting on the middle track. If you know Ang Mo Kio Station's layout, it has 3 tracks and 4 platforms. I looked at the arrival information display and saw that the next Southbound train was at middle platform. True enough, the doors opened.

I boarded the empty train, together with a few others. When the train sped off, the platform was still full of people not daring to board this train. And so I had a pretty empty train ride to town.

Worse come to worst, I'd have a free trip to Bishan Depot, that's all.

bus captain can't do maths

While they ask you to pay correct fare, I seriously think some bus captain can't do maths.

I was waiting for SBS Transit bus service 74 at Clementi Road. One came, filled until the entrance step was also occupied. Half a dozen passengers alighted but the driver refused to open the entrance doors. Hello, if about 6-7 alighted, why can't you let 3 board the bus? You mean those few were hiding in the engine compartment that's why you don't have space for new passengers?

And those on the bus, if there are passengers from the upper deck alighted, why can't you just go up so that you free up more space on the lower deck for more passengers to get onboard? And when I saw that the back portion of the bus was pretty empty, I really wanted to bang some window and show some middle finger. (I hate to say this, but most of these people were alighting at SIM. I'm sure there are nicer people from SIM)

It seems like SMRT buses don't have this problem of passengers not shifting to the back. Ah, cos their CEO said "the importance of the train is to ensure you can pack as many people as possible."

professor ≠ professional

I really wonder if there's an inverse relation between the word "professor" and "professionalism"

Late last week, my FYP supervising professor emailed me, asking if we can meet up this week to discuss about my interim report and the presentation. With due respect, I asked him to suggest the time and date since a prof is supposedly busier than a student, so it's easier to work around his schedule than mine. It was only Monday this week that he replied, suggesting today 5pm.

And so, I was outside his office at 5pm today. No light from inside, nothing. I knocked on the door. No response. This is not the first time my FYP supervising professor is "flying me aeroplane".

Then I saw him coming out from the conference room down the corridor. He told me that he was having a meeting with external people, and it would be disruptive if he excused himself there and meet me. So he asked me to come back around 30 minutes later.

I came back at 5:30pm. Not there. I came back at 5:45, not there. I came back at 6pm, still not there. So I waited outside the conference room, hoping to catch him when the meeting was over. I waited until 6:15pm before I gave up and head home. Maybe compared to my 3 hours traveling time to campus, the 1 hour 15 minutes was nothing.

Now it seems ironical that they were trying to teach engineering professionalism as an examinable module.

inkjet fountain

If you go to Raffles City at City Hall and take your eyes off from the window displays, you may notice a water fountain that looks something like this:
Some sites refer it as inkjet or smart waterfall, cos it looks like an inkjet printer printing out, just that gravity takes care of the paper feeding and now it's water instead of ink. The computer programme controls the valves and nozzles to open and close at the precise moments to create words and patterns alike.

I saw some zodiac signs and some stick figures at the Raffles City's version. Maybe you should go take a look and share with me what you see.

loaded watch

The other day was having dinner with a family friend, who just came back from a trip to Hong Kong. He shared with us a funny encounter at 7-Eleven, where he saw this man passing his watch to the cashier and said "二百蚊啦" (cantonese, "$200") The friend thought the man was pawning his watch and giving a price.
Amused, he asked, "嘩, 咁既錶值二百蚊?" ("wah, this watch is worth $200?")
"增值喇!" ("add value lah")
"錶都可以增值?" ("watch also can add value?")


What he saw was actually an Octopus watch. Yes, Octopus as in the older cousin of Singapore's Ezlink card. They don't only come in the form of cards, they are also available as watches, ornaments, handphone pouches, handphone slings, etc. Definitely saves the time digging into your bag for the card and jamming up the queue. Just don't whack your watch on the card reader too hard.

I always feel that Singapore's public transport infrastructure is lagging.

Oh and I really wish the 7-Eleven here can top-up your ezlink card without the service charge. 50 cents if I'm not wrong.

quote on crystal mover

Please hold on to the handrails, we are now leaving for terminal 1.

Then I saw 2 Caucasian guys comically grabbing the handrail as if bracing for a rocket blast off.

The Skytrain at Changi Airport uses Mitsubishi's Crystal Mover, which is the same as the one on Sengkang / Punggol LRT, but with uglier body (in my opinion).

Do you still remember the older version, which you can still find at the Bukit Panjang LRT?

help filling the cup

I'm not sure if it's still the "official" season for giving, but I would like to start 2009 doing something meaningful. I've recently received my payment of blogging money, and I am donating part of it to the United Nations World Food Programme.

The reason why I am choosing WFP this time, is because I wish everyone has food to eat. It is one of the basic needs for survival, and many of us have taken it for granted while there are kids in other parts of the world who are starving. 25 cents is what it takes to fill them a cup of porridge, rice or beans. Now, think of our $2 chicken rice or $20 dinner.

Like I've said before, you have a part in this small donation, as without you reading my blog and bringing me the blogging money, I wouldn't have the extra drive to do this small thing for the less fortunate. Thank you.

scholarship ceremony

I attended a scholarship award ceremony today, and well, let's say that I was the last guy up there. Can't help it, gotta clean up the mess on the stage :P

Kids, study hard so that you are well prepared when the economy turns good again! (and so that you can get scholarship)

Don't be like kor kor here like that. :P

marina barrage dams you

Went to the Marina Barrage (or, Marina Barra9e if you follow their fanciful fonts) yesterday and man, it's such an art of civil and mechanical engineering!

The Marina Barrage basically dams up the mouth between Marina East and Marina South, creating the Marina Reservoir. When walking on the dam you will find water of different shades on either side (then you doubt, how come the fresh water is darker). With water flowing in from Singapore River and Kallang River, drunkards better don't vomit into the river.

There are 9 hydraulic crest gates that will open up in times of high water level behind the dam. Just imagine the weight of water they carry and the force required. When both the inside and outside water level is high, the 7 drainage pumps kick in. Simply sexy machines in the pump house.


oopz the cover dropped
So now the Merlion can have fresh water.

what 2009 means to me...

in simple terms, 2009 = 2008 + 1

So here comes the obligatory new year blog entry.

Happy New Year to all!
(doesn't sound sincere at all)
If you ask me what happened in 2008, I will have to look at my blog archive before answering you.

*browsing browsing...*

ok I give up.

What strikes me is that a lot of my t-shirts will be expired. Ok I have quite a lot of event t-shirts that have large words like "Triathlon 2008", "Expedition 2008", etc etc. So when the digit +1, they become expired. Wear already will have rashes. This is oh-so irrelevant.

On a slightly serious note, our batch will be graduating in 2009 and stepping into the working world if we follow the "normal" path. Job market looks bad, economy too, but if we can brave the storm, everything will be calm as a pond afterwards.

Have faith.
And wishing you a good year (not the car tyre) ahead.