parabelrutsche

TU München has got a pair of very cool parabolic slides at their Mathematik/Informatik building.


With gravity taking care of the descend, talks about energy efficiency and fun in campus. (remember the subway station?) Does it help catching a lecture or tutorial in time?

We need more of such fun designs. Maybe should let people go on the Slide @T3 for free.

the tourist

Went to watch the preview of The Tourist yesterday at The Cathay.

Elise Ward (Angelina Jolie) is the lover of Alexander Pearce, a smart banker who stole money from the gangster and also wanted by the British Government for tax evasion. Thinking that she would lead them to Pearce himself, both the gangsters and the Interpol were after her. Elise received instructions from Pearce to find a man about the same height as him to mislead the pursuers into thinking that is Pearce himself, and on the train Elise found Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp), a tourist who is a college maths teacher. And the chase began...


With Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in the cast, you can't help raising your expectation for the movie. If you are looking for Tomb Raider-style action, there isn't much. The movie also requires some brain juice, and if I counted correctly there are 2 twists to the plot. But I find the length a bit short, cos before I could digest and figure out what was happening, the story ended. I was still trying to digest on my way out of the cinema, so I probably need a faster CPU. Johnny Depp's blur look fits in well for his innocent role, and the conversations are kind of classic.

It isn't disappointing kind of disappointing, but I think there is room for more. Or they purposely kept it short and sweet?

toilet fee vs free toilet

With much reluctance, I spent 10 cents for a trip to the toilet at a shopping mall today. There is a reason why I often patronise a particular fast food chain without eating any fast food.

A recent news report revealed that only 30% of the toilets in Singapore meet the 3-star standard, and some people's response to that is to have more paid toilets. C'mon, open your nostrils and sniff in, the paid toilets are smellier or the free ones? I can't guarantee you the free ones are always the cleanest, but the paid ones are definitely not.

I always have this belief that how developed a country is, is correlated with whether you need to pay to use their public toilet. It is a way of addressing and providing for people's basic need. Haven't you heard of people rather die than to shit or wet their pants? No names mentioned about backward countries still having paid public toilets, but last year's trip to China saw all the toilets I encountered having free entrance, compared to say a decade ago when the situation was a bit the other way round. And who says China has no human rights? (fine, they may not let you talk, but at least they let you pee freely). Now the toilets at our MRT stations are free, so are those in parks (while they may not be the nicest-smelling in the country). They used to be pay-per-entry, toilet paper sold separately.

Toilet is one infrastructure that cannot rely on public fundings of 10-20 cents alone.

season of giving

It is the season of giving.

I was strolling in the shopping mall when I saw this booth from a certain charity organization. It is a well-known international organization, and the projects shown in their brochure seemed interesting. I was planning to donate to them when something caught my attention. Some of the countries they are helping are nuclear powers of the world, some even have a place in the United Nation's Security Council.

What's the link, you may ask. Well, if these countries can maintain an awesome nuclear arsenal, why can't they feed their people or keep them warm in the winter? Perhaps, it is exactly because of this very reason, they have no money for their own people. In the end, I didn't donate to that organization. I mean, it works the same upsetting way as donating to an organization that uses gold tap or whose boss uses LV bags.

And so, I have decided to donate a humble part of my recent blogging ad income to World Food Programme, an organization that I have confidence in and feel comfortable donating to. You may want to give your fair share of criticism or skepticism, but I think it is the thoughts and feel that count.

Just want you to know that your click-clicks help.

is there a santa claus

I remember when I was still teaching, I ever shared with my class this article written by John Szymanski for the November 1998 issue of Physics Review. Excerpt:

1) No known species of reindeer can fly.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west. This works out to 822.6 visits per second.This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. [...] This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound.

4) Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' could pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214200 reindeer.

5) 353000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as space craft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillian joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and crate deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized with 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal force 17500.06 times grater than gravity.

For every theory there is a counter-theory, and one such is "quantum physics saves Santa". It's ok, I don't understand Heisenberg either.

Although it sounds unscientific, I kind of wish kids nowadays believe in Santa. Do I believe in Santa? I wish I do.

Merry Christmas!

christmas old man

This is the second part of the animation clip "動畫鏗鏘集" (in Cantonese)


At a time when global warming has melted Mr Snowman and the elderlies (including Santa Claus) are being forgotten, I guess a lot has to be reflected upon.

wireless charging for ev

EV (Electric Vehicle) is going to be the next big thing for the local energy, transport and infrastructure scene. But many see the battery as the bottle neck for EV. Think of it as the short talk time on your mobile phone and the long charging time. Many ideas have popped up, such as more charging stations on the road, battery-swap, etc...

How about contact-less / wireless charging using induction?


The Guardian ran an article on it. I think this idea is quite innovative. We can have such charging pad at parking lots, bus bays and even at traffic lights. If we have a whole lane of charging pad we are essentially creating some sort of a trolley bus.

Of course, anything to do with infrastructure, the private sector can't do it alone. Government subsidy and involvement will be crucial.

universal suffering

Somehow I visited Universal Studio Singapore for the first time last week. The first thing that struck me (other than that symbolic globe) was the kind of crowd there. It was only 10 something in the morning and all the ticketing booths had their shutters down. In the first place, had they even been rolled up? All the tickets for the day were sold out, so if you are thinking of buying tix on the spot, you can forget about it and settle for the Universal globe at best.

The place can be largely divided into 7 zones, each with about 1 or 2 rides and disproportional larger number of shops and restaurants. C'mon, you already paid for the rides, where more can they squeeze your wallet? I know it's school holidays season, but still, the queues at the rides are really turn-off. If you've survived Shanghai Expo, you probably can survive the average 45 minutes queuing time. But if you don't queue for any ride, why are you inside Universal Studio in the first place? In the end we only managed to take 2 rides + 1 show.

Playing wasn't the only place where you had to queue, so was eating. I queued more than an hour just for some $10.50 hainanese chicken rice, just because it seemed to be the cheapest around. $3 for bottled drinks, $2 for disposable raincoat (cos you want to enter Jurassic Park). Not really complaining about price, but the queue system at the food court was really inefficient. It is designed in such a way that if you want to buy 3 different food you could end up queuing for 3x my waiting time. Did I say I queued for more than an hour? Almost could turn into a Jurassic fossil.

Well it is a good thing for Singapore to be home to such international brandname, but honestly the place didn't wow me much (maybe I'm not a theme park person). They probably wouldn't care less if you are queuing for too long. Still, it was eye-opening to know such place exists in Singapore.

Tips to those who plan to visit Universal Studio Singapore: bring your own water bottle, pack some food, PSP / phone to kill queuing time, and bring along raincoat and prepare to get wet. And, forget about buying tickets on the spot.

last flight of the harriers

The British Harrier jets made their final flypast on 15 December, marking their retirement after 41 years of service to the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy before.

Being a military nut, the Harrier is one of my favourites. As a STOVL (short take-off vertical landing) aircraft, the Harrier is far from being the fastest jet but it definitely is unique. Thanks to its Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine, the Harrier is able to take off from short strips (including small aircraft carriers) and land vertically. Ever watched Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Harrier in True Lies? This STOVL capability gives commander greater options especially when airfields become prime enemy targets. During the Cold War, Harriers deployed in West Germany had the capability to be stationed in forest where they could be refuelled and rearmed, out of sight of enemies. And of course, the Harriers played a large part in the Falkland campaign of 1982.

Arising from UK's Strategic Defence and Security Review, budget has to be cut and the Harrier has to go. But the Harrier will still remain as a symbol of British engineering ingenuity.

The final flypast
James May in a Harrier

re-innovation isn't foul

The Wall Street Journal ran a report on the Chinese high-speed rail and the industry's love-hate relationship with it. The report describes how the Japanese and European players entered the Chinese market eyeing for a piece of the pie, but ended up having to compete with the Chinese manufacturer after they have transferred their technologies. When these foreign players entered China, they had to sign a contract with the Chinese which included technology transfers and in some cases training the Chinese engineers. The slideshow in the report makes good visual comparisons between the foreign designs and the "Chinese designs".

The word is "re-innovation".

Some of the foreign players scream foul. In my opinion, it's a commercial arrangement between you guys. If you want to eat someone's pie, of course you have to go with people's house rules. Else, you are always welcome to go somewhere else. Furthermore, if they copy from you and end up doing better than you, what says you? New speed record ok! Anyway this copy-me-copy-you is nothing new, kind of reminds me of post-war Japan.

If we don't re-innovate from Newton's F=ma, we can all screw ourselves.

buffet line policy

We were having this company function and lunch was buffet style. Somehow, the buffet queue evolved into something like the diagram below, with people taking food from one side and queuing up on the other side.
I whispered to my colleague, asking how come the queue become like that, and I sort of suggested having 2 lines would be more efficient. But being a small fry, I didn't really raise it up to the buffet crowd.
Then came a medium-big shot, a not very well-liked figure. He loudly criticized the queue as inefficient, then set out to take food from the other side of the buffet table. Efficient, but he disrupted the order. People at the end of the queue (ie, that guy) ended up getting the food faster.

So that buffet table gave me some food for thought. This is a classical top-down press for change, which the rank is the convincing by itself. Sometimes it is not that the bottom aren't using their brain, but bottom-up always seems to experience more resistance, just like the pull from gravity. Also, when the top presses for change and they are the first to benefit from it, how would the people below receive it? Well you can say he was spearheading the change. In this case, if the guy suggested the 2 queue system and let the people in the middle go first, would it be better-received?

Anyway the food sucks, so it didn't matter.

on liu xiaobo

Liu Xiaobo. Ph.D. Writer of Charter 08. Political prisoner. Nobel laureate.

If you look at it from the viewpoint of the Chinese government, it is no surprise to react with displeasure to the awarding of Nobel Peace Prize to a person slapped with "inciting subversion of state power". I mean, which government likes their power to be disturbed (not even saying threatened). However, if we look slightly backwards in history, didn't Chairman Mao "liberate" the people from the Kuomintang, and didn't Sun Yat Sen lead the overthrowing of the Qing Dynasty? What Liu did seems to pale in comparison.

Oh well, rules are set by the game masters to stay in their seats.

According to John Locke, it is the people's duty to overthrow the government if it violates the social contract to provide liberty and security. Some food for thought.

don't use gas saver net

Last year I talked about this gas saver net here on this blog. I thought it is only ethical to highlight if something is not right about something you have mentioned.

Ok, this gas saver net (or energy saving ring or whatever they call it) is not safe for use.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology & Inspection, Taiwan ordered a recall of all such device. It was tested that the burning efficiency after using is lower than without the device, and the carbon monoxide concentration exceeded their national approved level.

In 2009, 2 women in Hong Kong died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Their kitchen was found with the device used on the gas cooker. Test conducted by Hong Kong's Consumer Council found carbon monoxide concentration increase 40 times after using the device.

Anyway, it came to my attention that a particular online shop is using my previous post word for word, image for image (then put their own watermark) to sell this gas saver net. That's the kind of originality some entrepreneurs-wannabe have. That's besides the point.

So if you find your kitchen using such device, please exercise your judgement.

complete mobility

I just came back from a talk by Markus Zachmeier, Senior Vice President at Siemens. The topic was "An Integrated Transportation Infrastructure and electro-mobility". Something along the line of electric vehicle (EV)? More than that. The speaker brought up the concept of "complete mobility". The vehicle is the platform, but behind it there's this whole infrastructure that is needed. It will have whole lot of impacts on people's habit, commerce, environment, etc. For example, there will be baggage handling system which allows people to go hands-free when transferring between modes of transportation (sounds familiar with what is in place at some airports). Office will really go mobile, then the concept of using EVs as mobile energy storage. Honestly I'm not sure how it's going to work when we are going to use that exact energy for travelling.

One point that the speaker brought up was the need for governmental push. Private alone is not going to make things happen since a lot has to be done on the infrastructure. I think that is happening in the Singapore context as the government builds the tunnels and tracks, in the case of MRT, and let private companies run the lines. I think public-private partnership (PPP) will be the way to go.

Since the authority has awarded the electric vehicle project's infrastructure to _another_ German company, let's see how it goes.

postgal collection

Went to watch Postgal Collection, a 60 minutes show under the Animation Nation 2010. Postgal Workshop(貓室) is an animation company based in Hong Kong and their works have won various accolades around the world.

"Postgal Collection" (貓室動畫大集結) is a compilation of some of Postgal's works. It was screened during 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival. This compilation is in Cantonese and largely based on Hong Kong's social background, so an understanding of both will definitely help in appreciating the works. The fact that it is drawn in 2D shows that it is no use over-stressing on technology (ie 3D animation) but neglecting on storyline and creativity.

Other than the mostly irrelevant ding dong (癲噹), a parody on Doraemon, the short clips are mostly based on sad but true reality of the society. In "累透社", the girl was so tired of working life she decided to jump down from her office. But her boss caught hold of her and put her back to finish up on work (ie, too busy to die). In "媽媽出世了", 2 siblings have to overcome their internal struggle to live with their mother who became a different person after meeting with an accident. "動畫鏗鏘集" had a go on RTHK's current affair programme "鏗鏘集", and it received the Grand Prize in 10th TBS DigiCon6. It talks about the often overlooked aging population, how some old people view the younger generation (the train is like an arcade!)

"動畫鏗鏘集" is available on youtube.

animation nation 2010

Animation Nation 2010 is happening from 1 to 8 December at the National Museum of Singapore. Yesterday we went to see 2 of the events.

"DigiCon" was a free event showcasing 5 of the local entries for the 12th TBS DigiCon Awards. I think I'll just reserve my comments.

Either I am missing out on the good events, or I feel that last year's Animation Nation was more attractive. We saw Usavich and we totally love it, and the Singapore Showcase really showed the creative talents our secondary school students have.

The other show we caught yesterday was Postgal Collection. Shall talk about it on another post.

engineers and mobile phones

The new PE magazine has revamped their Q&A section into a more fun and visual design. In the November issue they talked about the interesting relation between engineers and their mobile phones.

70% of the engineers interviewed does not own a touchscreen phone, citing that they like the button feel (which I totally share). 75% does not access work email via mobile phone, cos they work hard enough during office hour. 86% have not considered buying an iPad. Kudos.

Of the 2 engineers at home, 1 uses a touchscreen phone (which means 1 does not), ironically the one with the touchscreen does not really use the internet on his phone.