vertical limit

I was going up the escalator at the train station when suddenly a lady pulled on my sleeve and asked me about my t-shirt. I was wearing a climbing t-shirt. I thought she wanted to ask me where can she buy the shirt.

So at the concourse level we stopped and talked. She told me that her friend's son recently went to climb Mount Kinabalu. Although he had a weak heart and the doctor advised him against going, he went ahead. He went up, came down. Everything seemed fine until he collapsed back at the hotel, and he passed away.

While I find the lady weird to suddenly stop a stranger and talk about this, but one thing she said strikes me. She said, what's the use of reaching the top, accomplishment and all when you can't come back home alive, and leaving behind a sad family?

Worth it or not, is up to individual. For me, the reason why I don't really go all out for outdoor activities, is my family.

going on circle

The route map looks like zoo train ride.

While I may like trains, but I didn't purposely go and ride on the new Circle Line on its first day of operation. I just happened to want to get home from Little India. Just nice, took the North East Line, transferred to Circle Line at Serangoon, back to North South Line at Bishan.

The transfer at Serangoon was fine, the distance seemed to be shorter than the transfer at Dhoby Ghaut. However it got a little confusing at Bishan. There seemed to be too many exits, and the North bound train and South bound train don't share the same platform like what it used to be. Even for the same direction, they have separate exits for staircase and escalator. You can't see the escalator until you are on it.

The Circle Line uses 3-cars Alstom Metropolis C830, so I actually find the platform a bit cute and short, only 12 doors, compared to 6-cars 24 doors on the old lines. Oh I really like the high ceiling of the platform, gives you that European train stations feel that I saw on pictures.

I thought I'm going to use the trains more from now on, when I found myself not able to squeeze onto the North-bound train at Bishan.

seeking job is not an easy job

Nowadays hunting for job has become my daily routine. Flipping the classifieds, logging into the different job portals, sending in resumes. And waiting for replies.

Looking at the job requirements, many of the job postings say Nitec/diploma/degree. Which means to say, that position can be filled by an ITE grad, a polytechnic grad, or an university grad. That starts me thinking, what difference does holding on to a university cert make? (they will say, the pay is different. If so, why would employer pay more for the same job?) Why go the extra 4 years if you don't need a degree cert? Why pump money (both ours and taxpayers') into university education? Has our university education failed? Or has the economy failed us?

Ah, and during interviews, one standard question is, what makes you different from other candidates? How to convince them that the company can't function without you (of cos, that's a lie. Both the interviewer and the interviewee know it.) Seriously unless I've gotten hold of some scandals between the chairman and his secretary, I don't see how I can convince them. I'm just here to look for a job.

I'm kinda glad I'm the only one feeling frustrated. My parents have been supportive, never rushing me, and even suggesting me to go on a trip. I just want to get a job so that they can retire. They have been working for decades, even machines need a rest, no?

there is no shame in not being the best

Today I went for my nth job interview. While I feel privileged to be selected for the interview by such a big international company (no hint), I wonder if I should feel equally grateful for the grilling session.

It is like the norm for interviewers to tell candidates scary stories like working OT or coming back in the weekend or stress and work piling up, but, to pick on the candidate? My interviewer today was like picking on the Bees in my result slips, saying I didn't gel my hair or didn't prepare a powerpoint presentation to sell myself. Huh? No doubt, first impression is important, but do I need to borrow Kangxi's clothes to impress?

Then just nice, my watch chose to run slow by 10 minutes and the interviewer blamed me for making him overshoot his interview time. While my watch was slow, I arrived 1 hour early for the interview, give it to him that makes me 50 minutes early. This sparked off another debate between preventing problem and rectifying problem. I don't see a problem. But if I had adjusted my watch 10 minutes faster, would I have earned bonus marks?

He said, I rank second from the bottom among the candidates so far. Seriously, if I'm not your best candidate, I don't need to waste my time listening to you saying I rank second from bottom. I don't have to act like unethical salesperson trying to sell something that doesn't perform as advertised. And while this may not sound suitable for schooling kids, but I don't see what's wrong with being at the bottom (motivational books will say the same thing). There is no shame in not being the best. And there is no loss in not getting an unsuitable job.

I am looking forward to my (n+1)th interview.

nus fsae team ranked top among asian teams

I seem to have immersed too deeply into the joy of the Eco-car team and forgot about the other pride of the NUS Mechanical Engineering, the FSAE Team.

The NUS FSAE Team 2009 raced at the Formula SAE Michigan 2009 with their Centennial V and emerged overall 19th in the race. I don't see any other Asian universities ahead of us in the chart. That makes the team top in Asia.

Both the FSAE team and the Eco-car team and their good results go to show NUS' strength in engineering education, in this case the automotive field. Though I'm not close to the FSAE team, but I always see them working late into the night, squeezing in dinner at the bench outside their workshop. I'm sure their effort has paid off well.

*image from http://serve.me.nus.edu.sg/fsae/index.php

Young Cinema

Some kids grow old, but they never grow up.

So the kid in me went for the Young Cinema, a series of short films and animations screenings as part of the Children's Season 2009 at National Museum of Singapore.

It was really a warm sight to see families with kids relaxing at The Salon, laughing at the funny scenes in the films. Adults' laughter sure mixed well with children version. Oh and I had to fight the urge to fight for beanbags :P

While I find some of the films deep to understand (if I put myself in child's size shoes), I particularly enjoyed Badgered and The Animals Save the Planet. On top of the innocent laughter they brought, the films also have some educational messages to viewers.

The Young Cinema will be on from 23 & 24 May, 1 - 7 June.

gundam is 30

2009 marks Gundam's 30th Anniversary. I think I missed its birthday in April. Being a Gundam fan, I can truly say I grew up with Gundam, having caught all the series and OVAs from the original 0079 to the recent Gundam 00. Of course, I'm younger than Gundam.

I read that they are building a 1:1 life size RX-78-2 Gundam in Tokyo. Are they going to let people play Amuro Ray? Then where's Char's Zaku Custom?


So how big is 18m tall 1:1 Gundam?
*look at my 19 years old 1:144 RX-78 Gundam gunpla*
ok, nevermind.

But that was my very first Gundam model kit. Childhood memory eh.

museum companion

I had the pleasure of showing my coursemate around the National Museum of Singapore before she returns to her home country.

I had been a volunteer with the museum when it was formerly known as Singapore History Museum, so I thought I could act smart a bit and do a little tour-guiding which I haven't done for so long. But the museum has moved on with technology so much so that tour guides are becoming replaceable.

Now visitors at the Singapore History Gallery are issued a digital gadget known as the Companion. Put on the earphones and punch in the number as you bump into code numbers in the gallery. Want to know the story behind the artefacts? Punch in the code number that is shown next to them, and you will see text explanation on the LCD screen. Lost your way in the gallery? Just press the map button and it will even show your current location.

What I don't like about the device is its weight. If you are like constantly holding it up to read the descriptions, your arms will ache at the end of the tour. The number keys don't seem to be ergonomically placed, and there's just too much punching to be done if you really want to learn about every single story inside the gallery. Could they have made use of barcode scanner or even RFID technology?

It sure seems like a trend that museums are harnessing new technology to explain old stuff. While I am impressed with the use of technology, but I do feel a lack of human touch. You can have LCD screens showing pre-recorded smiling faces, but it's just not the same as a real tour guide bringing visitors around and making fun of William Farquhar's name. In fact you are not going to survive the Gallery without the Companion cos there's no printed descriptions for the exhibits, just code numbers.

Singapore will be celebrating International Museum Day 2009 from 23 May till 31 May.

quote of the day

I didn't know NUS has engineering
-- my interviewer, a particular engineer

-_-"
Ok, the faculty seriously needs to do something about branding.

So this morning I went for an interview. It's always good to arrive early, cos you always have to fill up a form. And spare some time to laugh yourself off. On the form I saw things like "new IC number, old IC number", "... please return this from to...", or under employment history, "Please start with your most recent joy..." What joy? I'm starting to find it kinky. Job and joy, eh?

Will they hire me if I had circled all the typo errors and spelling mistakes using a red pen?

play responsibly / inclusively

Don't get me wrong, I'm not promoting gambling here. But if you are a regular player, you should know about the TOTO S$5 million draw. Good luck :)

So I was walking past a Singapore Turf Club outlet with my old man, then he wanted to buy a ticket for the draw, but he didn't know how to buy, so he asked me to help him buy. This unfilial son of his refused, cos it's something like my principle not to bet or gamble. I don't gamble, but I don't stop others (including my family members) from gambling. But that doesn't mean I must go and encourage people to gamble.

Now this is called inclusive. Shut up and sit down. :P

choo choo tickets

Being a big fan of rail travel, I thought I should share some goodies with you guys, in the form of some "antiques" on this International Museum Day. Ok you can argue that I should have done that on National Train Day.

Shown above are some of the tickets of the train rides I have/have not taken :P, all of them older than this rundown blog of mine. At the top is the top and reverse of the Kowloon to Guangzhou through train ticket. Second on the left is the tix for Light Rail of Hong Kong's New Territories. Bottom left is top and reverse of the Trans-Perth ticket. Occupying the bottom right are the train tickets of the People's Republic of China. If you have a sharp eye you can see they are of different classes, ie some have hard seats, some soft cushioned seats, some air-coned.

I doubt if they still use these tickets nowadays.

international museum day 2009

Today is International Museum Day, and the theme set by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) for this year is "Museums and Tourism".

I would say museums and tourism have that interlocking relationship. Museums are usually excellent tourist attractions, showing visitors the heritage and history of the country, and tourists make up a significant proportion of visitors to museums. Whenever I have the chance to go oversea, I would make it a point to visit the museums if I have the time.


Singapore will be celebrating IMD09 from 23-31 May, so stay tuned and look out for the activities!

relativity in food

One thing I find hard to understand is people's preference and opinion of food.

Thanks to the power of globalisation, we can enjoy (that is, if you really enjoy it) foreign cuisine without leaving our home soil. However, one thing I must emphasize is, authentic doesn't always equate to delicious. And the word delicious, is a relatively subjective matter. Relativity?

A while ago a friend talked about a particular local Thai restaurant chain being a far cry from the Thai food you get in Thailand, but they have no shortage of customer queuing up at the entrance. Next, A Japanese friend of mine expressed similar sentiment about the local Japanese restaurants, but my other friends who are local seem to enjoy them very much. As for myself, I am a diehard fan of authentic Hong Kong dim sum. It always horrifies me when people drown the tasteless siu mai into the plate of chilli sauce and give that satisfied look. Hongkongers don't do that.

So you see, it doesn't matter if the food isn't authentic. What matters is, people like it (or, don't see what's wrong with it). Try asking Italians what they think of Pizza Hut, or Germans about Budweiser.

I am sure Mister Cat and Dr Einstein will have quite different opinion of what is good food. It's all relative.

walking when talking on the phone

My mother used to say, when talking on the mobile phone, don't walk around, cos it will affect the signal reception. I thought, how could that be? It's mobile phone, mobile. Now I realize she could be right. (mother's always right, eh?)

It's called a cellular network for a reason. The principle behind a cellular network is frequency reuse. Seriously they can't afford to allocate one channel per user, so the idea of frequency reuse came out. Electromagnetic signal dies out with distance, so by adjusting the signal strength, it is possible to use the same frequency at different locations. Thus, the geographical area is divided into cells, or even microcells and picocells according to the user density. We are actually living in honeycombs.
Then what's with walking and talking? When we cross the cell boundary, there is a process called hand-off, where the base station will "hand" you over to the base station belonging to the other cell, and before you know it (actually you don't) you are speaking through a different frequency. I don't mean you speaking with a different pitch now, but the signal is transmitted via a different frequency. I can't imagine pacing around and keep crossing the cell boundary while on the phone.

GEK1513 is an interesting module to read.

Targus Racing Stripe Messenger

I just unwrapped a Racing Stripe Messenger bag from Targus. On first look, it doesn't look anything like a laptop bag, more like a primary school kid's school bag. Not bad, less risk of getting stolen while reserving seats at canteen. Made of dobby polyester, it doesn't even feel like your classic laptop case.

Opening the Velcro cover, you can see the main laptop compartment with the standard padding and securing elastic strap. Only then I spotted the Targus logo. The designer really did a good job in hiding the brand logo, cos the only other locations with the logo are on the reverse side and the shoulder strap padding.

Aite back to the important stuff. Besides the laptop compartment you also have compartments for documents, 1 zipped compartment, and a fat one for your berry and what-not gadget. I really like the key clip.

The thing I don't like is the grab handle. It is off-centre and as such the bag tilts to one side when carried by the handle. Also, it can't fit my Nalgene bottle. But who on earth carries a Nalgene in his/her laptop case?

kruce-ing to 5th place

The NUS Eco-car team is placing the Singapore flag at 5th position at the Shell Eco-marathon Europe 2009, under the UrbanConcept category. The other teams from Singapore are from NTU and ITE, both taking part in the Prototype category.

It sure was sunshine after the rain when the team almost couldn't go for the competition due to the H1N1 Influenza A, now this excellent result is like the ensuing rainbow.

In the automotive field, the only thing that I can think of from Singapore is armoured vehicles. Now having beaten some of the technologically-superior countries in the race, in true Singlish, I would say, "don't play play!"

job market is like bgr

Job market is like boy-girl relationship.
There are job positions waiting to be filled, and there are jobseekers looking for job.
Some positions will never be filled, some jobseekers will never find job.
And the two don't always look for each other. And the two don't always accept each other. Although both are readily available.
Some look at short term employment, just like short term relationship, while others look for perm positions, just like long term relationship.
Some are temp or contract, just like flings or open relationship.
Some jobs don't need experience, they take in Bachelors, while others, they prefer the experienced ones, the Masters.
Some people already have a good job, but they are constantly on the look out for another job.
Some people do part-time, moon-lighting. One is never enough.
Some job positions won't even consider you if your grades are lousy, while others will accept you for whoever you are, as long as you are sincere.
Some try very hard but can't get the job, others get in, like so effortlessly.

Some people grumble everyday about their job, but eventually they stay on for life. They can't live without it.

money-dumb

One of the most frequently asked questions these few weeks is, am I going for grad trip. The answer is no.

All along my plan is to hunt for job and start work ASAP. It hasn't occurred to me to go on holiday while still owing the bank money for my tuition fee loan. Not like I'm financially insolvent, in fact I have enough savings to repay the loan now. Just like our nation's reserves.

But it irritates me a little to know that my cohort mates who are on grad trip, have gotten their jobs, and they can afford to start work after their fun. Me, who is willing to start work right after stepping out from the exam hall, has no job, no trip. I'm not whining. I have been sending out resumes and reading up classifieds. Fine, I'm just not good enough.

My parents were telling me, maybe it's a good time to go on holiday since the economy is bad, price will be cheap. But I don't believe in spending tomorrow's money. And I've heard of nasty cases of kids making their parents pay for their tuition fee and holidays. No thanks. Or borrowing money from bank to go on grad trip. No thanks.

Call me money-dumb (antonym for money-smart).

lung bursting joke

Sometimes I'm glad that we have low crime rate and that people are mostly civilised. Mostly.

Yesterday I was having dinner with some friends when this 2 guys in their 30s came into the eating house and sat down at the table behind us. One guy was spotted with a pack of pink Hentai-looking cards. When ordering drinks, this guy said something to the effect of "I don't drink cold drinks, they make your lungs burst".

I glanced around our table. All of us were drinking cold drinks. Gosh, it must have been a gory sight when lungs start to burst and blood and organs start splattering all around, landing on people's pig organs soup. I do know drinking icy cold drinks excessively is not good for the lungs, but... saying it loudly when others are drinking, doesn't seem sensitive.

Then they started chatting and saying things like earning 30k through trading or stuff. Our table was dead silent as though we were listening to some guest-of-honour's speech.

Gunny sack and baseball bat, where art thou?

choo choo day

Today is the National Train Day in the United States, and they have exhibits and festivities at train stations across the country. Sounds cool eh?

I like trains. I like traveling by trains. It's like when I visit a country I will tell myself to at least hop onto their subway system. The feeling is just hard to describe. You get the hang of the city's vibe.

From an engineering point of view, the railway system is a big engineering stuff. The traction, rolling stock, locomotive, diesel-electric, wheels, rails, bridges, tunnels... enough to satisfy a boy's appetite.

And from environment point of view, need I convince you that it's greener by train than car and aeroplane?

hard bound feeling

For a honours year student, I guess one of the satisfying moments is when you see and feel the texture of your hard bound Final Year Project thesis.

Well, I don't have such honour. I could, if I want some memento.

Having killed so many tress in the process of doing my FYP (the topic, by the way, is sustainability related), I emailed my supervisor asking if he wants my thesis bound. His reply was so touching.

I think soft copy of your thesis is good. We all try to save paper and to be environmental conscious.

So if you want to save some trees, save some ink and save that 20 odd bucks for binding, do email your supervisor and ask if he/she wants hard bound copy of your thesis.

hosting geek

There really are a lot of sites that do web host rating and reviews for web hosting services.

Be it for your blog or your online shop, have you had a hard time looking for a good webhosting service? I had that before. I was thinking of hosting my blog and try out other blogging platforms, and man I couldn't quite decide. There are just so many hosting service providers out there. You look at their price plan, what servers they are running, extra features, bundles, etc etc.

So there is this site called Web Hosting Geeks, which provides reviews and rankings for various web hosting services. They have different categories such as budget, email, e-commerce, and they state down the different features of the hosting services. Quite detailed in my opinion. If you aren't convinced, you can read the users reviews and ratings. It's always good to hear from various sides of the story.

checkpoint nus

It was still DORSCON (Disease Outbreak Response System) level Orange when I went back to campus for my last exam paper yesterday. So I had the chance to experience firsthand the temperature screening and checkpoints in campus.

First I was at Science Faculty. At the Foyer there was already booth set up with 2 lines, one for visitors and another for staffs/students. For students, we only had to flash our matriculation card to pass through, while visitors had to have their temperature taken. Hmm. But I still managed to find some loopholes, near the Maths and Physics department blocks and behind the canteen.

Next I went back to home ground Engineering. Couldn't find checkpoints except at Computer Centre, where they really set up tentage as if there's biohazard or something. Awesome.

My exam venue was a tutorial room at E5. Before that I actually went to the computer lab to cool myself down, had been walking too much and surely body temperature would be higher by a bit. Ironic to pass exam but fail (temperature) test. Department staffs were using ear thermometers to measure candidates' body temperature. Although I did bring along my own digital thermometer, but it seemed disruptive to the process, so I didn't take it out. 36.

All in all, I guess it's difficult to implement something like this in an open environment such as my university campus. But I'm glad we are "operationally ready" for this kind of stuff. Really impressed by the timely email updates and sms notifications from the university.

By the way forgot to take photos though, was afraid they would fail my exam for it :P

robotic bugs

I've never been a robotic or mechatronics type, but I just saw this clip of the Singapore Robotic Games 09 and find it quite interesting.

The 6-legged or 4-legged robots compete to complete the course within the fastest timing. You need sensors, actuators, linkages, gears... and a whole gang of passionate team members.

If only our engineering courses can have more of these kind of hands-on fun. Learning should be fun.

can't see kangxi

Some time back I went to the Kangxi Emperor exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Me being a big fan of the CCTV drama 康熙王朝 (aka 康熙帝国) starring Chen Daoming (陈道明) as Kangxi, I couldn't have missed this exhibition of artefacts from the Palace Museum of Beijing.

Emperor Kangxi was the second emperor of the Qing dynasty. Taking the throne at the young age of 8 years old, the Qing dynasty under Kangxi is regarded as one of the most prosperous period in Chinese history. If you want to talk about racial harmony, Kangxi sure is an early example of it. Being a Manchurian, Kangxi learned about the Han culture since young, and he appointed many Han officials under his rule. Meritocracy at its best.

Kangxi also promoted science and technology by "reverse-engineering" many of the equipments and apparatus brought in by European missionaries. You will see scientific equipment such as calculator. Yes, calculator, not abacus.


The exhibition is open till 14 June 2009. Exhibits come with both Chinese and English descriptions.

(as photography is not allowed inside the exhibition, no photo of the artefacts is available. :P)

time table

If there's one thing you learned in primary school that sticks onto you for life, it has to be the multiplication table and I am grateful for the hard memorizing that I was being forced to do.

I remember some called it the "time table" and I was quite confused with the time table that has all the rectangles and the prominent word RECESS smacked right in the middle. Memorizing the time table? I could only remember what time is recess break :P

The other day I was on the train and saw this little girl doing her maths homework. Multiplication. Then she got a few questions wrong and guess what her mother taught her about multiplication? She made her add all the way to get the answer.

There are things in life that one must commit to memory. Then it will come as natural as pulling down your pants before taking a crap.

managing influenza A

Being a world-class institution, my university has rolled out a very detailed world-class response to the H1N1 Influenza A. Colleagues please check your nusmail. And here's my worst-class grumble.

the University will be setting up temperature screening stations at the main entrances of building clusters to conduct temperature checks on visitors entering its campuses.

Urgh.

All examination venues will be open one hour prior to the start time of each scheduled examination for temperature screening.

Urgh x2. Why must I still have paper remaining?

From Monday, 4 May 2009, all students will be required to monitor their own temperatures on a daily basis. Please record your temperature reading online at (insert url) by 10 am each day.

Urgh. Time to dig out my liquid-in-bulb stick-it-up-the-ass thermometer. Nah I've gone digital.

Students will also need to produce their student matriculation cards for access to offices, laboratories, workshops, tutorial/seminar rooms, lecture theatres and examination halls

Ok this one I'm fine with. They didn't say canteen (more specifically coffee stall), did they?

Just be socially responsible and do our part.

hogging the news

Ah, so the H1N1 influenza (previously known as swine influenza) wasn't from pigs afterall. (or, were they calling the people swines?) Maybe it's just a name like chicken pox. It's always easier to blame it on animals.

I was pretty upset when I heard the first confirmed case in Asia with the Mexican man in Hong Kong. The very place with the SARS outbreak some 6 years ago. The irony of it all is, Margaret Chan, Director-General of World Health Organization, is from Hong Kong, and her last rival during her running for the position was Mexico's Health Minister Julio Frenk.

labourous labour day

Labour Day wasn't rest day for my legs.

Took the MRT via Woodlands to Joo Koon, then to Boon Lay. From Boon Lay, took bus 154 to Eunos. The bus ride was never short, passing by Taman Jurong, Clementi, Bukit Timah, MacPherson... From Eunos, walked to Joo Chiat and all the way to Marine Parade. Crossed over the expressway to East Coast Park, walked East, crossed back to Siglap and took another long bus ride back.

My legs were so tired, when I woke up this morning I found myself sleeping the other way round with my legs on the pillow.