Norway Hat – A Way North

Er... Hello

2010-09-11T08:40:00.002+08:00

Hi everyone. I thought since I left this space frozen for such a long time (around 5 months to be precise), it would be fair to explain my apparent absence.

During the time I wasn't posting anything, I did actually check out this blog once a while. Meaning which, I login to see any response from readers like you, and updating the counter widget (coz the percentage part isn't automated) etc. However, since around July or August, this checking-out has reduced in frequency. Today, before I started writing this, I saw the "Stats" tab/interface for the first time! I have no idea since when that thing popped out in Blogger...

OK, I'll do more explanation next time coz I need to get to the main point, i.e. some updates from me. Eid ul-Fitr or Hari Raya Aidilfitri as we call it locally is now being celebrated. From the time of posting, it may seem near the moment where the first plane crashed into WTC 9 years ago. The catch is, this is not East Coast Standard Time, but GMT+8. Plus, this article will not elaborate on this tragedy. Also, don't get me started on the "Ground Zero Mosque" title, which is not a mosque and not at Ground Zero. =.="

It's study week on our academic calendar, which means final exams start next week and ends the week after. As many in UTAR and other university friends will discover, this is typically an active period for online activity, relative to study activity. Since the rush of assignments is over, students will release those pent-up pressure (a bit, hopefully) during that break. All will be released during semester break, which in our case can range from 2 weeks to 3 months. Why? For those who will take short semester subjects, you have a short hiatus from studies before starting a new one. Otherwise, I wish you happy holidays! Oh yeah, not to forget seniors who are graduating this semester. All the best after exams!

Well, I'm ending the update here. No plan of writing full-featured and well-planned article now. I will have a short break after exam, so I can't guarantee if I'll be active here at the end of September. Anyway, I will try, and thanks for still checking out my blog. ^^

Who clicked 1000?

2010-04-04T07:15:00.001+08:00

Around March of 2010, I posted the following in my sidebar...

Since I have a counter that tracks visitors, I can tell where the 1000th clicker comes from. Do note that I can't pin-point the person, as the tracker can only give me rough informations.

Now, I let you guess which country the 1000th clicker comes from. All I can give out as clue is that it isn't straightforward. The winner can get a gift from me. Here's how to participate:
1. Choose a country below as your answer, or give yours if you're confident it is none of those countries.
2. Type your answer in my chatbox with this format: (fine without brackets)
GIFT1000 [country] [optional message]
3. Participants MUST include their e-mail address in the chatbox entry for gift-sending purpose. You can be assured that I won't spam you, but I can't guarantee others won't... xP
4. Your chance of winning is greater if you:
– also include the city name.
– follow the given format exactly.
– send many entries (but voided if I suspect spamming)
5. Entries will be accepted until 29 March 2010, 12:00 AM Malaysian time (28 March, 4:00 PM GMT)

As for what gift I will give out, I have an idea but I may change my mind. It all depends on what the winner thinks. Happy guessing!

Countries clues (all are actual visitors): Malaysia, South Korea, United States, Singapore, Australia, United Kingdom, India, Germany, Hong Kong, Russia, China PRC, Czech Republic, Canada, New Zealand, Philippines, Brazil, Denmark, Luxembourg, Brunei, Norway.

OK, it ended here.

The sad thing is, only one reader replied to my contest. T.T Oh well, better than none at all... Thanks Nic, hehe... Maybe you won't even realise this unless I subscribe to your nicbored feed, and realised that you switched to a new blog, and left a comment there reminding you of my "existence". Again, many many thanks to you!

So, what's the answer? Where does the 1000th clicker comes from?

Nic, I believe you missed the phrase: it isn't straightforward. For your information and due to fairness, I excluded myself from being recorded by the counter as a visitor. Thus, I cannot affect the counter no matter how many times I refresh this page. Sorry, but your guess is off the mark, way off...

I wonder if you have any sidebar gadgets that tracks visitors, Nic. They may allow you to visualise where your visitors come from. Due to the universal nature of blogspot, anyone from all corners of the globe can visit or stumble upon your blog. They could have searched for a keyword and landed there.

OK, enough crap... The 1000th clicker comes from...... [drum roll]

Prague, Czech Republic.

Yup, in Europe and half a world apart. Record shows that he/she visited on 18th February 2010. Let's see... I started blogging and placed the counter there since, um... late November to early December 2008. Taking early December 2008, it has been...
[calculate calculate calculate]

...1 year 2 months and a half to reach one thousand! Hmm, that's quite a long time. Well, what can I do? This blog isn't as interesting as my Chinese counterpart. It attracted about 5 times the visitor amount here!

Never mind Nic. As promised, there will be a consolation prize for you –– 3 professional pictures from the search engine Bing. I've downloaded a lot of 'em, and in fact, I can even make a collage out of it.

Haha... no need to pick from that messy collage la. Just tell me what kind of picture you want. I'll try to find 3 and e-mail them to you. Deal?

3rd dream in public domain

2010-04-02T11:45:00.000+08:00

This tends to happen to me, yet again. When I'm too relaxed, having too much days off, my mind would wander into uncharted territories. The following contents were jotted down earlier, dated 9 January 2010. That was 2-3 weeks after my industrial training. Those anxious to know what I encountered during training are advised to be patient... Anyway, here goes the dream...

[cue dreamy sound effect]

The last scene I remembered was at home. There was a message tone, so I went to my mobile phone. It was an SMS from a close friend of mine, saying that he was inviting me to Kuantan. Well, I couldn't go there because my dad was about to fetch me somewhere. I didn't ask and he didn't told me. Afterwards, I couldn't remember the journey. In fact, I was there right after the setting at my home.

It was dusk and I arrived at a hybrid place of PA block, the admin block of UTAR in PJ. Not familiar with the word "hybrid"? OK, you can replace it with "rojak" for a touch of Manglish... xP Anyway, compared to the actual block, the corridor leading from the entrance is narrower. The "see-through" computer lab is on the opposite side, and both rooms (instead of just one) were for conducting classes. Outside the building, it looked like the campus is having a Canteen Day of some sort. Space is not a big deal, as it is as wide as outdoor food stall (大排档), unlike the real world location. I saw people eating on long tables outdoors, with the option of eating under a shade too.

I was inside the building, looking for a friend in the computer lab. I couldn't find him, even outside the building. There's a sugar cane water stall nearby, so I ask for a plastic bag of that water. When I reached into my pocket however, I couldn't find my wallet. So I asked her to jot down an IOU, but knew that the seller wouldn't have any paper with her. I excused myself to the nearest "order" stall. Typically this kind of stall will write your order on a paper, clip it on a plate and send it to the cook. That's how the one in my university canteen works anyway.

So I went there and found a young Malay lady just serving Nasi Pattaya on a plate and ready for the next order. I just looked around from a medium distance and didn't ask a thing yet. There were a few plates of fried rice place on the counter, something I usually saw in the factory canteen where I did my internship... Anyway, a Malay guy approached the counter, or more like approaching the Malay girl. They chatted for a while and then the guy started singing a song that really sounds familiar to me. Wow, did it surprised me that he's singing a Chinese song, 珊瑚海 by Jay Chou and Lara! Since it's a duet song, the Malay cook also sings as in the actual music.

Their pronunciation were not bad to my standard, like Chinese pretending to sound Malay. It looked as if they were practising the song for some event. Nope, no one cheered when they opened their voices. In fact, I heard an obvious "shh..." interrupting them halfway, but then they just smiled it away and continued. Well, I woke up just before they entered the chorus.

Not a bad ending really. I would rather have a sample of it than having them to sing the ENTIRE song. Anyway, the entire song is below. A song to challenge when singing karaoke. Trust me, the chorus isn't easy to master... Well, enjoy!

I see nothing! / Open in new window

Yup, did you notice that I mentioned passingly on my internship, aka industrial training? Unfortunately, the full story will still need to wait for other times. No matter what, I'll strive to make that post as interesting as possible, soon after I make my assignments as interesting as possible... >.<

Also, did you guys notice that the CEO of TNB wanted to sue WWF over Earth Hour? Huh, what was he thinking, right? One hour only mah... Some more the report said that it's a waste of excess electricity for that one hour! Then the press conference ended with him yelling, "POWER EXTREEEMEEE!!!", filling the room with strong spotlight, blinding the journalists for a moment.

Erm... something sounds fishy right? ^^

Happy Valentine!

2010-02-17T19:03:00.005+08:00

Three days after that faithful day, both Valentine's and Chinese New Year, I'll post something for the former. All pictures below are captured within the span of 2 days, the 14th and 15th.

OK, let's start!

No matter where you are, by the vast seaside...

...or across the rolling mountains.

Indoors, on the ceiling...

...or outdoors, by the roadside...

... I will always stay by your side. (or try my best to do so...)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm single btw...

Overdued U² #2

2010-02-13T08:16:00.008+08:00

My last such “update” stopped at Year 2 Semester 2. One year nearly passed since, what happened in between?

Let me first finish the Y2S2 part, coz I literally stopped half way at that time. The second half of that semester is basically a heap of assignments plus midterms plus... lecture notes, plus... er... tutorial questions? Hehe, about that... I wonder how many people really study those questions before the final exam study period? Well, my attitude toward tutorial questions is something like: I'll do it when I'm free, then get bored/distracted, then forgot about it as I'm doing other stuff. Even if I did them or copied down the solutions, somehow I didn't take a second look at those questions, not very deeply even if I do look at them. This is unlike many of my friends who redo and redo their tutorial questions before the exam comes. OK, you can take that as a reason for my inconsistent exam results. T.T

Lets continue with assignments, shall we? As mentioned previously, I would have a working FM transmitter by the end of the Analogue Communications assignment. It is working on the breadboard (temporary circuit connection) but totally not on the stripboard, most probably due to poor soldering techniques. Even the breadboard circuit is not broadcasting as strongly as some of my classmates, where theirs can broadcast up to tens of metres away! Good for them, I mean after several “overtime” sessions in the laboratory, constantly holding their mobile phone in radio mode, watching the spectrum analyser, either yelling at the microphone or playing music from another phone... at least they worked for it and deserved it. Outside the lab, my breadboard mini-broadcaster works at home at a rather obscure frequency, slightly above 108 MHz. So I'm able to hear the television speaker (downstairs) by tuning the radio to that frequency (upstairs). Interesting stuff indeed.

Another interesting assignment, although not hardware-based, is from Signals and Systems. We were analysing past sunspot data to predict the next peak of sunspot activity. It wasn’t straightforward, as the raw data is really noisy as you can see above. According to my amateurish analysis using Fourier Transform, the next sunspot cycle will peak on October 2012. Hmm… isn’t the year familiar…? Do you think it will happen two months after the time I predicted, and exactly on the 21st? xP

Next, it’s Wookie time! If you’re going “dude, what’s that?”, let me first tell you what I did with that. This subject’s assignment required me to design a home security system with a microcontroller at the core. That obviously meant I need to program the micro-C so that it accepts input from a keypad, compare the input with a password entered earlier, at the same time considering the effect of debouncing, counting down 30 seconds and controlling 2 LEDs with a 7-segment display. What a handful… Fortunately, this Wookie thing allowed me to simulate my assembly code for the micro-C, making sure that at least the program logic is correct. A weird name for a software, isn’t it? I believe it’s named after the Star Wars species (with an extra “e” at the end). I hereby release the machine code below in public domain, subjected to the GNU License and Creative Commons, or whatever makes sense.

S119000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000E6
S123C000CE100086F0A7071C2403C602E7041D00401C00204F6F031C03708D2D6F031C03F0
S123C020B08D266F031C03D08D1F6F031C03E08D181F0001041E0001081D00401C00202072
S123C040D41D00201C004020CC811024188104270D81142709E603C407C1072B2E396F03B8
S123C0601C03E020F01E25800620E2120E010C1808188C0039260F8D7A200B1E0010051C02
S123C080009E20026F001C258020C231313CCE200001010926FB381E03075B1F03842C1F66
S123C0A003822C1F03812C1F03442C1F03422C1F03412C1F03242C1F03222C1F03212C1FDB
S123C0C00314361F0312281F031144C6012056C6022052C603204EC604204AC6052046C663
S123C0E0062042C607203EC608203AC6092036C60020327EC1817EC0153CCE000081102472
S123C10018CC0000ED00ED0238910A261420E78104273D8114275320E0140A01CE00102032
S123C120E0861020D1810427CD811427C9183C970818DE0718E7004C18381E03070220FAC7
S123C1403CCE200001010926FB381E0307A820EAC6EEE7041F0001FC1D00201C00401C25DE
S123C16080861018CE00007EC0153CCE0000E600E10A2685088C000426F4381D00087EC099
S10FC1800AC69EE704140E011C000839D6
S9030000FC

Dizzying? I’m afraid there’s more to cover… On the remaining 2 subs in Y2S2, I’ll just brief you through. I can say Numerical Methods and Statistics was a breeze, mainly coz the lecturers were giving us plenty of “chances”. During tutorial, it was still Ms Yap who clarified our doubts after attending Dr Fazlul’s lectures. [sigh] On Intro EM, I wonder whether it was necessary to split the lecturing responsibility in the hands of 3 lecturers. Anyway, the subject proved to be more than just an “intro”, with many derivations to do and rather abstract ideas. For final exam, we were forced do Question 2 and any other 3 questions, where Q2 was lectured by that Fah Jeh I mentioned time and time again. Huh, a good little trick to “balance” our understanding of this subject.

We came back after about 3 weeks of holiday to start Y3S1 around June last year. Before we even get to the academic subjects, there was one subject where we have to prepare early before taking it – internship or what we call “industrial training”. For our case, the university allows us to pick those training companies on their list. Other companies will require further particulars from the student. If a student can’t (or don’t want/lazy to) find any companies by the due date, the lecturer in-charge would have to pick for him/her. The experience should be priceless, but many students voiced out their frustrations about paying RM1000+ for the training programme. The “official” stand of the uni could be “since it’s 4 credit hour, 4 multiply by this rate per credit hour gives you the fees”. This payment is more than the training allowance of most students I believe, thus the dissatisfactions.

So, a few of the subjects in Y3S1 have some sort of continuation from the previous sem. The same lecturer who partly taught Analogue Communications, Mr Ng, was the sole lecturer for Analogue Electronics. Names are deceiving sometimes, as we were facing more op-amps and their applications, including filter, oscillator and regulator. Not much connection with the other analogue subject, except for the assignment maybe. Talk about freedom of choice… We can select to do anything for our mini-project, as long as we choose at least a component introduced in the syllabus. More on that later.

From the “intro” subject came Electromagnetic Fields and Waves! Good news: much less derivation and just one lecturer, Dr Lau plus another tutor, [errr…] Dr Lim. Bad news? More “waves” of equations and abstract ideas, plus the crazy micro-ammeter while doing the antenna experiment maybe. The topics had pretty short names: Maxwell’s equation, EM wave propagation, antennas, transmission lines, waveguides and modern topics. Wait till you see the details… By the way, our assignment for this was to study on an antenna, any antenna that we could get our hands on. In the end, we knew more about an indoor antenna bought from Giant hypermarket. It wasn’t bad actually, since we pulled off our presentation nicely and got one of the highest marks among our peers. As the “group leader” said to me once, credit goes to all of us. ^^

We were not done with programming yet, since there was another related but not-so-related subject called Computer Architecture. The humble microcontroller grew into an intricate maze of transistors that power a computer, but thankfully we didn’t go to such a low level. Still, the level is low enough that we have to understand the syntax of the Intel IA-32 architecture. Besides that, we were introduced to RISC as opposed to the complex CISC like Intel. Programming knowledge from both architectures are needed in the assignment, where we created a simple calculator and compare their performance. As always, my computer-plus-guitar whiz friend did his version, and eventually many other friends copied his. As for me, I just refer la…

Since we usually save the “best” for last, I’ll now mention about Process Control and Instrumentation. The lecturer, Dr Niranjan, really wanted us to understand the topics very well that he repeated and repeated the same section. Eventually, he had to speed up a lot towards the end of our study period. His slurry, “toothless” voice certainly didn’t help. Lucky juniors… they got Dr Tham as their lecturer (unit leader and is waaay better), while we have to add an extra effort to guess what our lecturer is trying to say. Dr Tham was also the one who came out with our assignments. We were to design a PLC program that controls our admin block’s air-cond system. There was this nifty little PLC box in our lab that could verify our design. Simply compile the design, download it into the box and it’s ready for testing, through many on-off lever switch outside the box. Haha, it might as well become our “toy box”. XD

OK, here comes the last subject, and you can interpret the “best” part along the way. Communication Systems was lectured by Dr Lo, and boy… did he gave us a very deep first impression. Five minutes into his inaugural lecture and he lectured a student in particular. He asked that student who made noise or laughed or what to leave his class if he wanted to do so, and at one time even called him “brainless”. He knew that his mini-lecture will drag time, but he signalled that this is what will happen when such interruptions happen again.

As if that wasn’t enough, he did not give any notes in softcopy form. We have to hand-copy his transparency notes projected by the OHP. Oh well, I can say that helped me to understand his lectures better. His assignment required MATLAB, which many of my friends dreaded to hear, to model digital communication systems. There were also extra questions in the assignment that many avoided to attempt. Given that I have the enthusiasm to try out new MATLAB stuff, my close friends came to me for guidance. Now I know how to recover data from a seemingly random signal, as shown below.

Oh yes… the Analogue Electronics assignment. To get an idea of what we can create, a group of us went to Jalan Pasar, Pudu to look for electronic hobby kits. I bought a temperature-controlled relay switch, and some of the components became a part of our temp-controlled fan network. The trick was to interface the comparator output with the fan, since the output of an IC cannot drive a motor directly. In the end, we figured that out and the whole system works! Without strictly following temperature levels, that is…

3 fans blowing simultaneously on a 9V supply, due to high temperature of fingers...

After the Y3S1 final exam, I went through industrial training and currently (at post time) doing Y3S2. Both of them will be elaborated in separate posts. By the way, my result for Y3S1 is the worst among the other sems. I only have 3 more chances to fill in that gaping hole. Hence, I wish all who’re dealing with their studies now, ganbatte kudasai!

Accidents

2010-02-01T16:19:00.003+08:00

To those who took the last few sentence of my previous blog post seriously, haha... I think it's better to follow my tempo when writing a post. So, I'll leave the two announced plans aside for a moment and add in this piece. I promise it'll be interesting. By the way, the title is actually referring to road accidents, and the cases below are thankfully not fatal ones.

Obviously, we should be well aware about the danger of getting involved in an accident. There are all these campaigns and police operations going on especially during the country's festive seasons (like the impending Chinese New Year). The problem is, most of the time you would become the victim of these collisions.

Take some of my friends for example. Someday in August 2008, they were going back after some shopping in a rainy day. Their car was on the fast lane (right side) on a busy street, but suddenly another larger car cuts out from the left. Since they were in a Kancil, the side collision caused it to tip over to the driver's side, plus a U-turn of the car when it stops. They were very lucky to made it out alive, although the driver suffered 14 stitches on his right hand. Below shows the damages done to that poor Kancil.

Click here to read the whole story, if you understand Chinese, that is...

Another one of my friend had his story to tell on February 2009, though he didn't put it in his blog. One fine day, I received an SMS from him saying that he just had a car accident, Kelisa head gone, hand injured, made police report, and he's fine... My first impression was: Walau, so steady one... But yeah, even if you're in this situation, the last thing you should do is freak out, right? I mean a minor accident and injury still can act cool la... If not I won't even receive his SMS at all. (Oops... choy, choy!) Anyway if I'm not mistaken, that Kelisa was not his own car but his brother's. Oh, that wouldn't be good...

Of course the above are my friends' experiences. How about mine? Well, I should start with what happened with my family car. In March 2009, as usual I heard the familiar engine sound gets louder as it enters the house. Then the Iswara Aeroback engine stops and I was ready to greet the rest of my family. What I saw later made me reach the digital camera and... *snap*

Actually I should give the credits to my sister who took this photo. Yup, the last sentence of the paragraph above was an exaggeration. But that's what happened after a collision to the driver's front side. Try looking at the very left of the picture and you'll notice that even the door is dented. On how did that happen, I'll have to let my family members recall back and will update this post with the reason. Anyway, the car was repaired and...
Bling bling huh? As good as new.

Before I get to my close encounter, there's another picture from my family camera that I want to show you. My family and relatives were on our way back from Port Dickson on Boxing Day 2009, more simply known as the day after Christmas. Yup, it was also five years since the triggering of the Indian Ocean tsunami. It seems that this day shouldn't be spared of any mishap. Again, the 2 pictures below were not taken by me but my siblings.

Try guessing what happened on the North-South Expressway heading to Seremban. Clearly an accident of some sort had happened, since the road was pretty congested at that time. Hmm, but what kind...?

I was napping when this photo was taken, so I can only read from the picture just like you to interpret what exactly happened. Yet, I couldn't tell which vehicle hit the lamp post, though I'm guessing the lorry is more likely. If so, what about the car? Anyhow, this scene is just irresistible to those passing by and even that yellow guy (which should be Peronda PLUS). Hmm, was he thinking of sending this picture to The Star and get RM50 richer? XD

OK, time for something more recent and personal. On 28 January, I was about to be late for class when I left home. Usually I have two options here, take a bus, which very much depends on chance and luck, and wave a taxi, which is consistently the fastest. That day was no different, but the taxi was a bit... missing something. The left side of the dashboard had no display of the driver's information. I didn't know whether it was at the back because I sat beside the driver. Also, he was a bit unsure of how to get to UTAR, but I didn't take that seriously. Just as we reached a junction where the traffic light was allowing car from the right to left, the driver naturally braked as there was also another car in front. But then for some reason, the brake got released, the taxi glides forward and...

I wasn't wearing a seat belt, so I jerked forward and hit the windscreen like a smack to the head. Good, at least the taxi wasn't going fast, but the damage was done... The victimised car was a Hyundai Matrix I guess, and it was a Chinese driver. You could tell that he won't let this one go so easily. The taxi hood was squashed until three-quarter length, and both headlights smashed like my family car example. The amusing thing was that the taxi driver said, "Wait. Let me call the police first." after listening to the victim's rant, without first apologising. Yup, I know a police report is required if you're involved in a road accident, but c'mon... show some courtesy la.

I stayed at the scene for 2-3 minutes, said sorry to the driver for not paying him, and continued my way to the uni. That was a 15 minute walk to class. One thing I thought of on the way to campus was that I should have told the taxi driver to bring out that reflective triangle thingy from his boot. As you may notice in the map, the road is quite narrow for an accident to happen, so naturally there was a queue behind. I felt that I can do that much more to help, but heck with it; I'm late for class and it wasn't my fault anyway...

That was all there is to these man-made disasters... for this moment in time, that is. As the Chinese proverb goes: the road is akin to a tiger's mouth. It is sheer coincidence that the coming new year is the Year of the Tiger, by the way. Still, be careful guys, and take care. =)

Third poll result

2009-12-28T23:31:00.012+08:00

I described my second poll as "hyper-overdue", even though it may be just 2 or 3 months expired. This one was over 8 months! Even the result was not visible/missing at posting time, since it was so...... Now you tell me what adjective should I use...

What an improper time to start this poll too, as I also went missing from Blogosphere for around 8 months. Anyway, thanks to those who voted for this poll question: How's my updating speed?

These answers were left blank: faster than I can catch up, and others (write in Cbox). Expected results actually; the first one is placed for fun, and I don't see people comment a lot on my poll question. The result is tied between acceptable because of quality and slower than most bloggers, with 2 votes each. Both statements cannot be more exact in describing my blog, in which the latter one become an undeniable fact. T.T

Looking back at my writings and rantings, I realised that I could compose an essay pretty well. That was my worries when I go for SPM: dunno what to write. Maybe I focused too much on writing factual topics instead of more creative ones. Yeah, the mind is more imaginative when the person don't limit his or her thinking. But why did I stray too far from the topic above? I'm trying to link it with the other point...

Looking back at the passing year of 2009, we started the year hoping that it will be better. Well, in the economic sense, indeed it is. As always, things cannot always be good, as there were a fair share of black events too. My next poll will look at what you guys think about the year 2009. Which are the big events/stuffs that defined 2009? I listed down 19 of them, and votes are definitely welcomed on the right side. I even added Chinese translations for those who came from my Haha893 blog.

Obviously, I have a whole lot of catching up to do. I mean, two-thirds of the year had passed since I typed my last post. What happened in between? I'll start with something more recent, and then something in 2008, and then...

Hopefully I can move those planning into execution.

Oh, yeah... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Earth Day, Earth Hour

2009-04-21T08:14:00.003+08:00

First we have "Earth Hour", then this. I actually came to know of this celebration through the NatGeo channel, where they scheduled a series of environmentally-related programmes. According to Wikipedia (as always...), Earth Day is officially celebrated on the March Equinox (20th or 21st) by the United Nations, but is more popularly known on April 22.

To be honest, I have nothing much to say on this topic, other than mentioning about Earth Hour. Yeah, by right I should have inform you guys about the abnormal change of background back in March 27-29. But I didn't, and here I make it up for my readers. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, read on.

I've switched to this background for 60 hours since 12pm of 27 March until 12am of 29 March 2009. Anyway, I'm well aware that the "60" on the famous Earth Hour logo means "60 minutes", not "60 hours", but I did that on purpose. I mean, how can I change the background and leave it only for an hour? Then no one would notice, and my effort would be pointless.

Yes, it's really my first time using Photoshop CS4 to design something, and no, I've never used previous versions of Photoshop. All this while I am (still) using Corel Paint Shop Pro to do picture editing, because it's so easy... (or I'm used to it?) I would definitely like to learn a thing or two about Photoshop, since it can give me more control in tweaking pictures. In fact, the countless pictures you see on print media or the web could have been processed by Photoshop. But for now, Paint Shop Pro is enough.

Actually, I did thought of "switching off" my blogs on April Fool's day, but I'm unable to do so because of my overused excuse of "b-u-s-y". Oh yeah, I was exhausted when I reach home on 28 March, so I slept during Earth Hour. What I heard the next day was, many of my neighbourhood lights were off at that time. Of course, those who can't live without computer/laptop still left it on. =.="

I agree that we should participate in this event, but it is just a symbolic one. No big impact here. It might as well be named as "Blackout Hour". Nonetheless, it's a noble step in creating awareness across the globe. Oh, speaking about that, I forgot to turn off the bathroom light after getting out...

* tap *
(...the mouse button to submit post)

U² #1

2009-03-08T08:30:00.004+08:00

Weird title huh? It means University Update number one, and that's how I will start posts of happenings in my uni. Currently I passed the half-way mark of this semester, and things will get ugly as usual, but I'll get to that later. Now I'll report on past events since the week-long holiday ended.

This is something that started since last semester, leading to a conclusion last month (sorta). Our course began with one group of around 20 students. Over time people come and go, but obviously there's a net increase. That caused our group to split into two, and our "dearest" (XD) class representative cum course rep fell into the second group due to alphabetical order. I'm in the first, but all the while we didn't really pick a group rep. Well, there were a few volunteers once a while, and the most popular were Jarod and I.

Fast forward to this semester. Jarod was terminated through exam results; Sam (the course rep) wanted an easier life, since he was still technically responsible with the other group's affairs, like timetable change and replacements. The easy solution was myself: I became the official group rep of, well, my group. Chores include collecting reports, confirming replacement time, carry projector to class etc, but still unmatched with Sam's workload. Here's some confession on my behalf: I'm still a sucker in managing myself. How am I to manage 16 people? Anyway, you can safely neglect the previous sentence. Hope I can learn through experience for the better.

As you may have known, I had plenty of holidays in the course of this semester. That's the good news. The bad one? Replacements. Yup, the word that many groan and dreaded, the price to pay for having time off. We had several good doses of classes from 8am – 6pm, two to three days consecutively sometimes. Then Dr Lim told that our once-every-fortnight Signals tutorial would quadruple in the last few weeks to discuss past year questions! That means we could have 3 days ending at 6pm, not to mention waking up early the next day... I still have this difficulty of rising up even with alarm clock (h/p alarm by the way...). I know many who might not feel that that's a big deal. Fair enough, you went through it earlier or got used to it, or... you skipped those replacements eh? xP

Another buzz word having a higher level then "replacements" is test or midterm. I just had two of 'em, another 3 close to end-of-sem and one take home test. First was Intro EM, initially said to be 2 hours but changed to one hour in the last minute, yet the question is not modified to suit the period. Result? I have no idea of anyone that managed to complete the exam-standard test, and I lost 20+ percent just like that. Learning from that, I make sure I was truly prepared with the next test on Statistics. Turned out that I don't need to work overtime: the questions were straight-forward. Still I learnt something from it, which is constantly reminding yourself of where you are on the road. Y2S2 is not like first year OK... things will get difficult, and that's how it has to be.

So far, I consider Analogue assignment to be my favourite item. By the end of this drill, I should have a working FM transmitter. Interesting huh? There are maybe some catch though. It may not be adjustable, so it could be tuned to a fixed frequency. Personally I prefer a variable one, but that depends on whether I can get the necessary parts. The signal may not be strong enough to get out of the antenna, or the antenna is short for the radio wave to propagate. Theoretically the antenna is 70cm to a metre long, but if a shorter one works practically, so be it. Eventually we can't keep it (I guess), so that's sad, but at least there's full documentation for a future build. By then it could be enhanced, or even transmit in stereo. For now, it looks my hope of broadcasting illegally could be realised... only in my dreams.

Next, updates on lecturers. Ms Thong is lecturing Intro EM now, and I was expecting something like the idiom "hell hath no fury like Fah Jeh scorned". Nope, her mood is better after she delivered (she was pregnant the last time she taught us). Yet she's still having the mantra, "Are we happy with this equation? [silence] Assuming yes la. Okay, next..." For Analogue, Dr Chung and Mr Ng swapped roles between lecturing and supervising lab sessions. While Mr Ng's (dry) humour is spoken out, Dr Chung's is in the form of cartoon pictures, like showing cave-men beating drums as "wireless communication" (which is just as dry). Not bad for giving first impressions.

Another new face in lecture halls is Dr Fazlul, who replaced Ms Yap and teach Numerical Methods. Many still need time to comprehend his Bengal-accented English, while he struggles to understand our English and culture. Ms Yap did comment that "he's bringing [a public uni] culture to UTAR", which meant dragged lectures that still end early. I wouldn't think that our standard is superior to that or any public university, but we try to act like a semi-private uni. (Is there a "semi" btw?) Mr Francis in µP & µC talked about the movie Matrix to relate it with subroutines or functions. "Once a while Neo etc. need to enter the Matrix to ask the Oracle questions and fight some baddies. Only when they get a phone call, then they can return to the main world." Never watched the movie, so don't exactly know the correctness of his statement or my paraphrase.

Lastly, I wanna bring your attention on one of our sports club. My dad wanted to teach taichi in UTAR, but wanted to follow procedures. The way is, gather enough active members for the Wushu Club, since taichi is considered as a subset in the club. Then any related activities can be organised, including taichi/qigong lessons. Clearly the club is now dormant, and there should be a minimum of 13 members with posts to get this club going. So... anyone interested? My father has practised Wu style taichi for a few decade, and recently learned some basic qigong as compliment. I for one don't prefer to join this club, unless I have to. Hope to get some good news...

I appreciate your time for reading. The next update may come in the end of this semester (April), before I head to the exam hall. Regrettably, I can't update my blog at will, but I realise there are a lot more major stuff to do than rant here. Guess I'll see you in quite some time.

Second poll result

2009-02-22T08:28:00.002+08:00

It's pretty pathetic that I leave that hyper-overdue poll question on the right for months after it's closed. Guess it's a lame reason of writing a blog post just because of that. Right, the poll question is: What do you expect from my blog?

The tally went like this: Interesting, academic stuff – 2 votes; personal, creative stuff – 4 votes; you read, we write – 2 votes; None for others. As with last time, not many voted, just six. Easy reason for that, not much readers, and presumably unfriendly language and content. That's why I'm asking this question to understand the expectation of current readers.

I agree, many came here over and over again to understand what's going on with my life, not some cryptic, obscure, bland academic thingies. I also believe people are attracted by pictures, especially personal ones, on any personal blog, not lines and lines of text. Well, unfortunately my style of writing is more like the latter. I believe strongly that a person's blog should reflect its writer's style, be it creative or academic. It seems that this textbook-style blog fits my personality.

Still, I understand the difficulty of reading multi-line paragraph, that's why I just went to a new line. I also realize that my level of English is hard to grasp for typical readers, that's why you see a dotted-underline up there that explain the meaning of words in context. I won't do that often, but I hope you guys can improve your vocab while reading along. That's what I do now to assist readers to read my blog line by line. You'll definitely be rewarded by doing so, one way or another.

Occasionally I will get some pictures or videos on the face of this site. Since it's a rarity for now, I'll tag them for convenience. You can find them quickly on the right. As always, if you have any suggestions of improving the friendliness of this site, or just about anything to tell me, let me know through commenting or chatbox. Due to academic works, I may be slow in responding, but rest assured: I will at least take a look at them.

Yeah, look forward for more personal stuff, as you guys wanted, on the same address!

My life so far (Part 1)

2009-02-13T08:31:00.001+08:00

Alright, it's a new year and a whole new beginning. (The previous sentence was written in January) This blog is a mere two-month-old infant, and thus I haven't written so many post for you (the readers) to know more about me. So I thought, it's about time for me to start something new here, and here you have it– a series of my personal experiences, so far.

Now, where should I start...

Lets begin with my health condition when I was really young. For that, I'll have to refer to my mum. She mentioned before that I was indeed difficult to brought up, because I fell sick very often. I don't know if that has anything to do with being the first born in the family, but that could explain my physique now... hehe. Besides that, I have a hidden secret underneath my steps. XD As cliché as it may sound, "you gotta see it to believe it". But trust me, this information usually finds itself in the "short-term memory" section of the brain.

Probably due to my health, I was sent to a baby-sitter in Wangsa Maju to look after me. Under the same roof, there's another individual who needs special care because his wires aren't connected properly (and I didn't mean that as a joke). More often than not, I became the victim of his tantrums, but thankfully that didn't last long. I was sent to another baby-sitter closer to home. Regarding why am I so good in my studies, I wonder if it has anything to do with pre-school.

I was sent to Calvary Church Kindergarten (spell check says it isn't "garden" but "garten") when I was (according to my parents) not fully 3 years old! Not much memories there, just maybe it laid my foundation for English. After that, I went to Yu Der Kindergarten near my place, which also didn't leave me with much to remember. For primary school, my parents decided on SJK(C) Chung Hwa (P), which I believe is a rather popular choice within my neighbourhood who wanted Chinese primary education. The catch is, it's 8 to 9 kilos from my home, and it's so close to the city. Hence, carpooling was a better option once we realised it.

Over time, I spoke less English and more Chinese, less fun and more homework (darn that...). I went through the big haze of 97/98, many cane strokes from teachers, the major construction project of the school, many friends who were born the same year, and then one year older than me, and needless to say, Chinese characters to their thousands. Here, I would like to express my highest gratitude to 张惠芬师/副校长 (who left school recently due to a scandal), 郭思均师, 罗惠玲师, 林爱莲师, 李其霓师, 曾副校长, 已故谭副校长, 姚春莲师, 陈幼珍师, 贺思穅师, 杨证栋师, 何锦华师... and others who I omitted or didn't teach me. (Gosh, as if it's Teacher's Day...)

When I left school, it was the so-called Y2K, which isn't actually the new millennium yet. Why so? Because the first year "when Christ is born" is 1 A.D., not 0 A.D. The last year of B.C. is actually zero-bee-see. So technically, 2001 is the first year in the third millennium "after Christ". Again, why third? Well, year 1 to 1000 is the first, 1001 to 2000 is the second. See where this goes? Anyway...

...wanna know more about my high school (or secondary school) life, and more? Look out for my next episode of life at the same address!

My CNY this year was... [sigh]

2009-02-03T08:08:00.003+08:00

OK, you probably would have guessed that I didn't have the mood to celebrate this Chinese New Year. Well, that's most of the story, not all at least. My friends who sent me festive SMSes may wonder why I hadn't replied them for so long. Don't worry guys, I'm feeling all right now. It's just that my body need to fall sick after a long time. Aiya, touch wood...

All this basically started before the new year, or the day before new year's eve to be precise. My family had steamboat for dinner at home before leaving to my Dad's hometown. Sure enough, vegetables aplenty, plus fish balls, tau foo pok, mushrooms, scallops... All raw until they're immersed in the simmering soup in the middle of the table. Familiar CNY sight right? Kay, fast forward to the next day. Our tummies were bloated from the feast, and we were getting ready to hit the road. Just then, the discomfort I got intensified and I need a place to clear it. Not downstairs: someone is taking bath; not upstairs: someone else is also clearing it. Gosh...

I sprinted outside, trying to control my muscle underneath at the same time. The tap then opened, releasing the watery sludge into the drain. I'm kind enough to not describe the smell, now and in the rest of this article. After a good wash, I went back to the packing-up and some time later, seated in the car heading to Malacca. On the road, my gut still has this lingering discomfort, that I have to press it with a pillow nicely strapped by the rear seatbelt. Hey, hope you guys also did the same, sans the plush. We actually didn't go to my aunt's house first 'coz we were about to check-in. Yup, we booked a hotel, and this was the way for the past few years. Strange idea, isn't it?

My aunt's son got married and had his room at "our hometown" renovated, which is a master bedroom that some members of our family used to sleep during our past new year stays there. Of course, we were courteous enough to return some space to that house and decided to find some other place. This year was a 3-star hotel (considered) in the city and it's not new at all. Never mind if the air-cond in rooms are centralised, but the no-longer-working temperature control revealed an ancient design. "Turn the knob clockwise to the desired temperature...", with numbers 1 to 12 and a "CLOSE", like the one you see in old-style toilet doors, the one with "vacant" and "occupied". Notice the "clockwise", because there's no way to turn it in reverse. Anyway, I turned a few times and it got stuck. Who needs it anyway?

You don't need to be psychic to know that we had a grandé-size feast for dinner at my aunt's place. I can stay there for only a month and gain a "normal" weight that many who know me hope to see for themselves. That's because there is plenty of meat there, especially pork. At home sweet home, the ratio of veggies and meaties is typically imbalanced, but I must admit, it's much healthier. As usual, nutrition values are blissfully ignored during any festive season, right? (Unless you have high discipline...) Back to the hotel, my gut felt all right until several hours in sleep...

I woke up feeling the alarm blaring in my stomach. Worse, I felt like passing motion and vomiting at the same instance. Sitting on the bowl wasn't a good idea at that moment, thus I squatted in the bath tub. In the end, no puke, but sh!t. That dung was slowly washed away until the sink hole got stuck. Then I have to step on the hole to force it down... Thankfully it looked clean (and no odour) after that, and I continue the passing on the bowl.

That does it! I have to apply that so-called "high discipline" on myself, sumore starting from the first day of CNY! Abstaining from most solid foods... that's enough to drive me cray-zee. During the evening, I've got no choice but to take a long nap coz I didn't eat much. Huh, that comes after I saw a TV program talking about: it's bad to take afternoon nap on CNY day 1, as that would mean you'll go through the whole year feeling lazy. Forgive me for being a little superstitious, but I can't help being like that amidst such a major festival. Heck, I was too tired to even consider that...

My mother thought the stuffed fish balls that I had at home was the main culprit. She said something was fishy with the meat inside the balls, and sorta vowed never to buy those anymore. Well, from my perspective, that could have caused it, but certainly the new year's eve mega meaty dinner proved too much for my stomach. It could have aggravated the situation that made me lao sai outside the house. I agree, suddenly changing your eating habit is truly a bad idea. Another day in the hotel's toilet saw me cooking up a storm, with all the wind and rain and hail...

Good thing I had few packets of bou zai yuen at Malacca, they definitely helped. Also, I had Milo and some kuih bahulu/honey cakes while others enjoyed yet another round of steamboat and other niceties and tidbits. On the evening of CNY day 2, we were heading back home before another drive to Bentong. That's my mum's hometown, and my tummy felt much better then. Several relatives from my mum's side also came there, bringing some dishes as dinner. For us, we didn't prepare anything due to time constraints, so we made up by buying a bucket of KFC chicken. I thought: a piece won't hurt right? Guess so, if you didn't count in those lip-smacking dishes my aunts made, and more pork. Uh oh...

I was glad to realise I wasn't alone the next day. My little brother and mum herself also had light diarrhoea back home. That's about all the lao sai we had during CNY, and now to some better news. At Bentong, I witnessed the process of rising a hot-air lantern, which is what we call 孔明灯 in Chinese. Here I mean one lantern, not hundreds of them like in Taiwan. The fuel is basically wax and kerosene, and I believe the authorities ban or discourage people from lighting these as they might disrupt air traffic and damage properties when they fall from the sky. The lantern that day lighted several minutes, until it became a bright star and vanished. Hopefully no one is unlucky to discover his/her car dented because of falling lantern.

Here's another interesting one: a creative festive card from the new DUKE highway. Actually, the four characters together isn't really meaningful. They're 牛、美、季 and 樂, individually means ox, beautiful, season and joy, respectively. That easily makes it the most creative festive card so far, and so is the highway construction. At the Hillview interchange, the road is twisted and criss-crossed in a surreal way, in my opinion. I'll let the picture do the description better.

Overall, I sincerely wish that what I did during that few "holy" days wouldn't affect the whole year in general. That included my spectacles that broke when it fell from a height taller than myself, and they're glass. Aaah, choy choy! I need something wooden to touch...

Y2S2

2009-01-21T23:32:00.000+08:00

As most of you would have noticed, blogging activity here has obviously slow down due to the current academic session. These past days, I have been sampling the appetizer that Year 2 Semester 2 has to offer. Hehe, literally the "main course" will be served after CNY, and the dessert won't taste good as far as I'm concerned. So, let me give you some glimpse of this forgettable gourmet experience full of papers, formulae and sine waves – which is sure to give you sleepless nights as time goes by.

This time, 5 compulsory subjects instead of 4+1. (That 1 was LAN subs) Workload expected to increase significantly. Time table? Quite a surprise actually. It is imbalanced to say the least, with one day nearly off and another stuffed with lectures from all 5 subjects! Still, I'm rather thankful that the stuffed day is Friday and not Monday for example. I don't wanna go for 8am class on the first weekday... summore end at 6pm...

Subjects? More focus on electronics than ever. Analogue Electronics is about radio communications, particularly in AM and FM. Signals and Systems is a continuation of Circuit and Systems last sem, which analyses signals in circuits mathematically. Speaking of which, there's a maths subject now, though it seems unrelated to electronics. It's called Numerical Methods and Instrumentation, basically statistics + numerical methods. Our programming subjects from last 2 sems didn't seem to end here, with a subject known as Microprocessor and Microcontroller Systems. This time, we're going to a lower level of human language, which translates to higher level of machine jargon. Last but not least, the "3-lecturer" subject, Introductory Electromagnetics. Yeah right, "introductory" as in super-advanced physics stuff.

Lecturers? Diverse personalities as usual. I believe the lecturer that got the most "attention" from us is the [em...] lecturer [aa...] who we [eh...] call Dr. [er...] Lim. Main reason clearly stated, just in case you haven't noticed. Another excuse is that he'll teach us in not just one, [with commercial tone] but twooo subjects! In fact he's one of the guys responsible for the "3-lecturer" subject. Another one is Dr. Lau, which goes at 110km/second... at first impression that is. But the third lecturer is so familiar to us, that we hope never to meet her. Yet, there she is – Ms. Thong, the so-called "Fah Jeh" (Sister Fah) if she's kind enough to let you call her that...

Yeah, I mentioned that Dr. Lim has another subject attached to us. That's Signals and Systems, and I hope that I have some kind of earphone that filter/censor the unnecessary tones. I wonder though, if the syllabus is enough to actually create such a product. Hehe... Lecturer for Analogue is Mr. Ng, which I don't have much to talk about due to lack of impression. One more similar lecturer is Mr. Francis Lau, which teaches µP & µC Systems, as he puts it. No complaints on the short form, and his class is kinda OK for me. He did his best to explain, so he can't blame us for difficulty in absorbing, because his classes are placed at the end, I mean after a looong period of lectures before it. This could be the hardest subject just because of the darn schedule.

On maths, we have two lecturers teaching: Ms. Yap and Dr. Fazlul. Statistics is taught by Ms. Yap, who can actually save some electricity for UTAR by not using the mike. Her yelling voice can really resonate through the lecture hall! That said, I would prefer her as tutor instead of Dr. Fazlul, who is from Bangladesh. Yep, don't be deceived by that Malay-like name. Another thing is he's actually new to this university, so he's still culturally inexperienced from his past job in USM. Oh well, he's going to lecture us on Numerical Methods half way through. We'll see whatever progress from him then.

That's my observation so far. There will be 9 days off from university: whole week because of CNY, and a Monday to replace Sunday's FT holiday. I'll definitely enjoy this hiatus, though that didn't bring any real meaning. No comments yet on how I'll fare in this sem, though more will be revealed in the future, in the same address.

Some other unrelated stuff last few days: Obama's inauguration as President. I saw hours of live broadcast on that ceremony that night. It's amazing to see nearly 2 million citizens out in the frigid, sub-zero air, cheering when their 44th President take the stage. On screen are some information on past inauguration records, like the longest and shortest speech, longest presidential term, and the fact that even without oath, Obama became President on 12pm sharp. Next day Malaysian time, I saw clips of the Obamas attending balls and apparently having fun. It doesn't sound that bad if they're going all out in the next few days, trying to rectify the country he inherited from the previous admin.

As mentioned in a former post, I have a simple optimistic hope fo this administration. All the best, and "may God help you", as said in the oath.

No Purse Day

2009-01-14T16:44:00.003+08:00

Yesterday was both a good and bad day. It's the second day of a new semester, and I brought my laptop to campus to configure wireless internet (and showing-off...). The bad, bad news was, I forgot to bring along my purse AND my mobile phone. How terrible this day went? Read along...

I went out that day with a heavy load of laptop, its accessories and my usual stuffs, all in a laptop sling bag. Yeah, the one that goes over one shoulder. It would be better if I'm carrying a backpack, but the one given as a free gift of my notebook purchase was still filled with other free gifts that went together with that purchase. So, I was lugging a 4kg load as long as I'm walking with it.

That morning, I took a taxi to campus. As it drew near the entrance, I reached for my pocket... "What? No purse?! And HP?" I sheepishly told the driver that I have no cash. Just as I suggested him to drive me back, he dismissed it and kinda gave me a free ride. Whew, thanks for not getting RM3 richer for the day! I wonder will this work next time... ^^

As I walk towards the lecture hall, I thought "this is gonna be one looong day." It's not that bad really, since I only have 2 one-hour classes. After class, I went to the faculty office with some friends to collect our result slip. When it's my turn, I said I have no student card (to verify my identity). "Where's your I.C.?" "I also don't have it. I didn't bring my purse..." "Never mind, what's your name?" [relieved sigh]

For lunch, I borrowed RM10 from a friend (at least he knows he'll get it back). When I left campus, I have used nearly half of it. Speaking about leaving, I actually walked back to my place. No big deal right? Yeah, if it's not 3.5km away and took 45 minutes of pure walking. Not that I've never did that before, but I was lugging 4kg extra this time around. Well, a good exercise won't hurt. It did kill my leg and shoulder though... plus I'm already very, acutely underweight.

Before heading home, I stopped by a stationary shop for a little shopping, and much needed rest. I have shillings as change, but they're noisy if I just throw 'em into my pocket. So I have to put it in my pencil box, since it's the nearest to the bag's zip in case I need 'em. Indeed, this is where I need 20 sen for my purchase there. It may seemed clumsy, but what the heck... They'll forget about it. Myself included.

In the end, RM10 was reduced to 60 sen. I was reunited with the two long lost, inanimate object. What a day it was. If you're wondering why I'm writing this crap, well... I can tell that my friends wanna know (lets put it: desperately wanna know) the "other" side of me. Not the nerdy, skinny genius that they would usually associate me with. There you have it: my personal day-to-day experience. That's why I have a blog anyway.

Sticking to that topic, did you notice the new poll on the right? Please vote. I hope it wouldn't be as "unpopular" as the last one. Voting closes on 31st January. This also applies to my Haha893 blog. Till next time!

Of Dreams and Searches

2009-01-12T12:58:00.002+08:00

OK, here's another post about dreams and vagaries. Those who're familiar with me may find this quite unusual, as I don't talk much about this in usual conversation. Hmm, this must has something to do with extreme relaxation and, subsequently, creativity over those 3 months. Looks like my right hemisphere came back with a vengeance, coz it's a little jealous with the logical left side. Right, here goes... [cue dreamy atmosphere]

Again, I'll start where I remember first. It was in my secondary school classroom, the one I used to study in Form 5, and it was recess. There were not many classmates there, or are they even my classmates? I reached for my mouth, and grabbed a toothbrush sticking out of my mouth. Hah, don't ask me why. After that, I rose and went outside, but then stopped because I just noticed that something is missing. I tip-toed back to my seat, or rather, big-walked silently/stealthily, as I usually do. Getting my water bottle, I went out through a door that wasn't actually there in the real classroom. I mean, that wall section where I found the door should go to the next room, not the corridor. Must have created that "in my dream", literally!

I had hardly a few steps out of the corridor when the setting changed to something like Genting First World Plaza (where the roof is high and space is wide). It's also one of the common scenes in my dreams lately. I chanced upon a rack of CDs, with a strip of (I guess) a part of a movie poster on top. I have no idea why, but my focus was on a close-up of a fingernail, the one that is cut unevenly. It was like the image is blown up excessively that I saw every detail of it. Speaking about that, I thought about an episode of Mythbusters where it discovered that it's possible to recall things better when you're hypnotised. Hehe, I wonder if it's that, or just another creative streak of the mind.

Yet again, the setting seamlessly blended to the washroom, the usual unhygienic one you see in KL, but still in "Genting". I simply picked a large cubicle and went inside, the flushing hole was clearly filled with past excrements. You would have guessed that I pulled the flushing lever, and you're right. Just then, my worst hope has just realised: sh!t started gushing out of that gosh awful hole... If you didn't guess the previous one correctly, I believe you know my instant reaction when I saw that. I passed by a cleaning lady, but she grabbed me by the back. Worse, her gloves were covered with thick slick of sh!t. Gosh, I thought she would just drop me to another working cubicle regardless of the mess I got. To my surprise, she brought me to a pipe and asked me to clean up there. That pipe is like a shower without the shower head, and also lower than usual. I turned it on, the temperature was just right, and I went in and enjoyed myself.

Not long after that, I was awake. Darn... Yeah, I must state here that due to the details of two dreams I have in this address, I hope that none of those readers are Madam Zorra of some sorts. What I meant is, please don't interpret my dreams, and especially tell me about it. Make your own assumptions, but the last thing I want is a commentary on those fantasies.

***********************
Moving along to an unrelated topic, I'm gonna talk about weird search keywords that link to my blog. First, it's phrases related to my Serenia Gardens post, like "access road to bukit antarabangsa", "serenia gardens overview", etc. At post time, more than half of those searches are related to this, according to my records. Next up is about my recent laptop purchase. They encountered my blog by searching the exact alphanumeric model of the two laptops I typed in that post. One search even went: acer aspire 6935g-842g32 (2.26ghz, 4gb ram 320gb memory, 16' screen). Talking about precise man...

I end this topic with a surprise, which is a search of "first place to turn 2009". Yup, it went to this post, which I didn't even thought would earn me a click in the search engine database. Better yet, the "clicker" is from Betio, Kiribati, which is the country I mentioned a few times in the post. The sources also mentioned the clicker is surfing from Television Kiribati Limited. Gosh... But I won't be surprised in the long term, as I would greet readers from many more countries in the future.

That's about it, my rant for now is over. But do expect more from me, even if it doesn't come as frequent as it used to be (I'm starting a new semester now). I'll probably do the same comments on search keywords in my Chinese blog. So stay tuned!

Update: Few hours after posting this, I got a visitor from the capital of Kiribati through his/her Google Reader. This means that the person could be watching my blog anonymously. Well, all I can say is... greetings from Malaysia!

First poll result of this blog

2009-01-06T01:52:00.001+08:00

The first post of a whole new year... So, I know it's a little lame, but I kinda want to make up with my previous post. I believe my new-year-lecture article was a bit too academic-like for an event like this. That's why I'm offering some "looking-back" stuff now, referring to my poll question.

The poll asked: What was/were the greatest incident(s) of 2008? Honestly, I'm a little disappointed with the response, just 5 votes. That made me voted on behalf of myself, which obviously is included in the five. Some rather minor results included Myanmar and Szechuan, and melamine milk, with a vote each. Following that, I'll elaborate on the other poll options.

BN lost 2/3 majority – 2 votes * (I voted for asterisked options)

That was certainly a major news in our country's political landscape, which made that election all the more "sexy" (referring to a columnist article that Thais felt our politics were "boring"). Of course the headlines included "5 states fell to the Opposition", "Democracy matured in Malaysia", etc. That said, our country was not the only one witnessing change due to elections, say Taiwan, New Zealand, and another popular country I'll mention soon.

Volatile petrol prices – 2 votes *

Actually, this option also reads: Financial crisis. That wasn't really the cause of crude oil prices sky-rocketed to nearly US$150, but it certainly caused it plummet to less than 50 bucks per barrel (which FYI, is 159 litres). Suddenly we got the news that petrol prices jumped 78 sen, and at post time, the prices fell below the pre-jump level. Guess my friends who have petrol-guzzling vehicles can relate to that better, coz obviously I'm not in that group... xP

Beijing Olympics – 3 votes

Touted "the greatest Olympics ever", this event also brought us on a roller-coaster ride that is Lee Chong Wei's victory and bitter defeat. I heard though, that some Chinese are not exactly "wow-ed" by the surprises that event offered, because other major events has similar grandiose that some are simply used to it.

Speaking of which, Google also made logos or what they call doodles during the Olympics, and they received serious criticisms from the Chinese web community. My comment on that is here.

Ahmad Ismail scandal – 2 votes

My Chinese explanation in parentheses literally means: Parasitic-living theory, which refers to the Chinese (and Indians) as non-permanent residents in Malaysia. This definitely caused a great uproar especially in the local Chinese, as many thought his statement was seriously irrelevant in this century. He didn't seem to apologise for that statement, and those higher-up had to say sorry instead. Speechless...

Abuse of ISA – 2 votes *

That's a short version of "Arrest of Tan Hoon Cheng, Teresa Kok and RPK under the ISA". I'm pretty sure the main surprise here is a media-worker got arrested, apparently "to protect her from reporting the story" mentioned right above (coincidentally). After getting out of detention, Teresa Kok was determined to sue a newspaper for what she thought got her into Kamunting. Meanwhile, Raja Petra was released much longer after them, though thankfully not 2 years.

President-elect Obama – 3 votes *

...though the "elect" part will be dropped officially on 20 January. That's another country who experienced change through its election, and Bush was "booted out", literally! (Nice reflexes, by the way... ><) Yeah, many sure didn't wished that they would live to see this coming, but guys... lets not place too great a hope on this administration. But I guess a simple, optimistic one won't hurt... ^^

What a mess the former year was... I dunno whether it's because of the Rat, but I really hope the Ox can clean it up. By the way, I want to bring up the difference between an ox and a bull. The ox is simply a castrated version of a bull, get it? Look up castrated in the dictionary if you're blur. Anyway, if you're talking about the stock market or the financial sector, you'd hope that a bull would save it instead of an ox. I expect that you're not blur about the previous sentence.

Right... I wish that the year ahead would be better then the last. If even that's not possible, gosh... I don't wanna wait another 360 days!

How does 10-D looks like?

2008-12-29T23:07:00.002+08:00

It's not difficult to imagine 3-D, since we do live in this world anyway. Naturally, this makes us hard to imagine higher dimensions: how does 4-D, 5-D and 10-D, as some string theorists predicted, actually looks like? I encountered this website called tenthdimension.com, which introduces the book "Imagining the Tenth Dimension" by Rob Bryanton. There, it gave me a much clearer picture of dimensions more than 3, and I'll offer my explanation later on this subject too.

What is 4-D? Well, according to the website, it is time. Ask the same question to those in-charge of 4-D movies, and you'll probably get the answer "feel" or "sensation". It's kinda creative for them to think of what you feel when watching their movies (water droplets, fan blowing, strips touching your feet) as another dimension of movie experience. Strictly though, it ain't really a dimension. Also, I don't wanna elaborate on "buying 4-D". XD

Back to 4-D as time. We are not surprised by how things change around us, or even how you change over time. But actually, we are travelling through a 4-D line of time. This line connects what we are now, to ourselves one hour ago, one day later and more – from our birth, to our demise. If you still think you haven't got the idea of 4-D, never mind. Lets start from the lowest dimension, zero-D.

Essentially, 0-D is a point. It has no length, width or depth. A point is not even a small, tiny, tinsyyy little round dot, because a dot still has some length and width. OK, now lets go to 1-D. In maths, you would have learned that connecting two points create a line, and that line is one dimensional. It has either one of length, width or depth. Cutting the line to get the smallest slice possible will give you a point. In other words, lots and lots of points join together to create a line. So, everything clear up till now?

Maybe you're already familiar with 2-D, which is basically a surface or plane. It has length and width, but it could have length & depth, or width & depth, as long as there are 2 measuring quantities. Overall, the size of a 2-D object is determined by its area, which is the product of the two quantities earlier if the object is rectangular. Lets take our knife again and make many slices of a 2-D object. You'll find that the cross sections are lines. So of course you could say that lines join together to form area.

Before I proceed to 3-D, lets us first think in a 2-D perspective. Lets say there is a male square named Rect, and (of course) lives in a 2-D world. He can't quite imagine how a sphere looks like, because depth is something quite abstract in his world. Suddenly, a circle pops out in front of him, and then it shrinks quickly and disappears. He can tell that the circle is a female, so he yells "Ms. Circle!". Another voice then answers, "I'm not Ms. Circle, I'm a sphere, silly square..." Rect then says, "Oh, sorry Ms. Sphere. I thought I saw a circle just now."

The circle reappears and replies, "Call me Ms. Sfera. Yes, you squares can only see a circle if I pass through your world, because I live in a higher dimension than yours." Rect seizes this opportunity to ask, "So Ms. Sfera, how do you actually look like? I have hardly any idea..." "Oh, flat brain... Remember how I popped out and then disappeared? Picture those events separately and then join them together as one," she answers. He thinks a moment and replies, "I didn't quite remembered clearly, coz it happened quite suddenly. By the way, my name is Rectangle Quadrilateral. You can call me Rect." Ms. Sfera sighs and then continues, "Wait a while Rect. I have something to show you, but let me find it first." She flips through a book she brought along and found this picture.

My attempt of sketching what I wanna convey, since I'm quite noob in 3D software...

She shows the picture to Rect, where he sees it suddenly appears before him. She explains that by taking pictures of her passing through his 2-D world, he can see some changes between the series of pictures. The change is caused by time, which is another dimension other than the spatial ones. By combining the pictures into one, you can imagine how a higher dimensional object looks like visually. "Wow, that's cool. You 3-D objects have shadows and changing gradient when light shines on you. I've never seen shadows in my world. By the way, what's your first name, Ms. Sfera?" Rect asks. The sphere replies, "I'm Elipsia Sfera, but my friends call me Elly. Nice to meet you, flatty." OK, I'll cut off the potential argument after that and end this short story.

Another example of picturing 3-D in a 2-D world is an MRI scan. You lie down on a platform, and soon being fed into the large machine's cavity. The MRI machine scans whatever that's inside your body, and displays the scans in 2-D. You can think that the machine is cutting you into flat pieces, from 3-D to 2-D, but when you combine or stack many areas together, you get volume. That's 3-D, which can't be any more familiar to us. By following the slice/stack analogy, if you stack many volumes together overtime, you get a timeline of the solid object, which is in the fourth dimension. Slice the timeline (or take a picture within it), and you get a 3-D representation of the object at that instance of time. So, strange as it may sound, we are travelling in a 4-D space of time, and the evidence is simply that we can change over time. Needless to say, we're going in one direction in 4-D space – forward. Up to here, I believe you may already wonder about this question (a long, long time ago): is it possible to control time to go back to the past, or the future?

Well, I have good news for you: I (kinda) found the answer to your question. You need a time machine (duh...) or something that can travel in the fifth dimension.
Oooh, kewl... but dude, what is 5-D?
In case you haven't noticed, I mentioned above that 4-D is a timeline. So, a higher dimension of timeline is...? It sounds weird, but yes – timeplane (at least that's how I call it). Referring to the "stack of slides" picture above, I almost forgot to mention that in 4-D, the flat slides actually represent an object in 3-D. It looks flat simply because 4-D is a higher dimension than 3-D, like the "Rect & Elly" story. Using the same analogy, if you're (lucky enough to be) in 5-D, you could see your timeline as a vast plane or thin strip, and 3-D is rendered to infinitely thin lines stacked along the flat mass. Hmm, this is my view of time travel after visiting that amazing website. Certainly, you are theoretically free from the flow of 4-D and can go anywhere in time. I'm emphasizing the word "free" here, because adding an additional dimension increases the degree of freedom by one, which is the term commonly used by physicians and chemists alike.

Now, are you prepared for the sixth dimension? What can you possibly do in that space? Well, it's indeed called the timespace, not to be confused with space-time. I kinda thought of it this way: In 5-D, although you are free from the fourth dimensional river of time, you're still stuck within the 5-D flow. So what could be outside the flow? Everyone of us has surely did countless actions in the past, right? Now, think about the actions or decisions that you didn't choose to do. Do they stop there? Not really. They still continue, alongside our timeline but never interfere with our current world. Our timelines are actually diverging, like branches of a tree. One action by yourself or the environment splits the timeline further, so the whole timeline of everything we did or didn't do/experience – from the past to the future – is like a messy, branching fibre, which fills the 6-D timespace and somehow didn't intersect (it would be bizarre if two timelines do cross each other; if you happen to flow in one of it). As explained before, you will never travel through your whole fibre of time without special assistance, and currently you're travelling in one thin strand of your continuously splitting timeline.

Lets create a time travelling situation. Open your left hand with the palm facing right, and imagine your entire left limb (arms and fingers) is part of your timeline. Your palm represents an action or decision you took, which subsequently branches out into 5 possible outcomes. Lets say the decision you made is about what course you wanna take in university or college. In reality, you can only choose one and continue until final year. OK, the problem is, you decided to quit the course halfway as you found it not suitable. Like some of my friends, they did quit the course and the university, went elsewhere and start from A. But what if you have a 5-D time machine? Now lets say you're at the tip of your left thumb, and you decided to go to your little finger. (From what you see, the thumb is closer to your eyes, while the little finger is the furthest.) The catch is, you can only travel horizontally along your fingers (left, right), not vertically (down). So, how do you travel (from your thumb to your little finger) in that way? The shortest way possible is to hover to the left or right of your thumb, down to your palm, and up to your little finger. Certainly, some of you might argue that there's a shorter path, right? Yes, but the thing is, the "shortest way" just now is applicable to the 5-D time machine. When a time machine is able to travel in the sixth dimension, things just get all the more interesting. Yup, the sixth dimension allows you to take the shortcut, namely from the tip of your thumb, straight to the end of your little finger. So, in the position of your left hand, the 6th dimension is vertical: up and down through your fingers.

Right now, you may have sensed a pattern: we're going from point, line, plane, space, then line, plane and space again, and we're just at the 6th degree of freedom. As an introduction before we explore further, the pattern will continue into the 7th, 8th and 9th dimension. I'll tell you more about the tenth dimension when we get there. OK, previously I mentioned that 6-D is the huge space of time, which contains everything we, or now I call it "every particle in our universe", did or did not experience as they travel through the 4-D flow of time. Essentially, "every particle in our universe" started from a theoretical big-bang, and it still has a long, distant future to go. Yeah, by the way, have you noticed how 3-D looks like in the 6-D timespace? If you snip a thin thread of time there, the cross section would be (of course) a 3-D object at that point in time. However, it would be very difficult to observe, since (as emphasized just now) 3-D is a geometric "point" in the sixth dimension. Even the 4-D thread of time is unimaginably thin to see, unless enough light is radiating out of it.

The elaboration above showed a clearer pattern: that a 3-D object shrinks to a minuscule point in the time dimension, then we link two points to form a line (4-D), many lines to form area (5-D), and many areas to form volume (6-D). Continuing from that, we shrink our 6-D volume of time into another minuscule point, and that point contains every particle in our universe and every possible timelines of our universe. Exactly how our universe will end is not important here, but every single scenario that you can think about our universe is contained in that point we now call "infinity". As we continue the pattern, 7-D will see an "infinity" point linked to another "infinity". (Yeah right, this smart guy came up with 2 infinities...) Of course, another "infinity" is basically another universe separate from ours, and that seventh dimensional line is a straight portal to that place (and other point universes that happen to cross that line). How about other universes? That order of dimension is what one of our terrestrial TV channel name itself – 8TV. It's known as 八度空间 in Chinese, which is literally "the eighth dimension". Still, there is a certain limit to this 8-D space, which is that you can only travel within the plane where your universe sits on. No where else.

Some of you smart guys out there might have guessed correctly how 9-D looks like. Yes, it's the space reserved for universes or infinities. If you can travel to other universes in this dimension, you might see that everything shrinks into a time thread as you enter the 6th dimension. Then the messy fibre of time further shrinks into a point that resembles our universe. After that, you travel to a point that is your destination in 9-D, and everything expands in reverse as you enter another world, where the laws of physics and chemistry might be bizarrely different than ours. The 9-D space is also known as the multiverse, since it's a collection of many universes.

OK, now we came to the tenth dimension. If you remember the "shrinking" analogy, where 3-D shrinks to a point as it enters 4-D, and 6-D becomes a point in 7-D, then you should get the pattern that 9-D shrinks to a point in 10-D. Now, is there another point in 10-D so we can join a line? According to Rob Bryanton (author of that great book), "this is where we hit a roadblock". Can you think of other things than universe, time and space that this point can connect to? Quite difficult, right? Many string theorists believe that everything in our universe consists of tiny vibrating strands of energy, and further researches suggested that there has to be 10, 11, or even 26 dimensions for this theory to be true! The 10-dimension model is basically one for time, three for space, and the remaining six are in the form of the Calabi-Yau Fold, which are very minuscule curled-up shapes that fills every point in 3-D space. Meanwhile, the 11-D model is the same as 10-D, with the extra dimension based on M-theory. It says that the strands of energy or "strings" can turn into sheet of membranes or "branes", which is where the extra dimension comes from. The 26-D model... is not my expertise, so I won't explain it here, but you can visit this and this link for more explanation on that.

Right, we're near the end of this post, so lets make a quick wrap-up.
0-D: point }
1-D: line }
2-D: plane } geometric
3-D: space }
4-D: timeline }
5-D: timeplane } time
6-D: timespace }
7-D: line to another universe }
8-D: plane to another universe } universe
9-D: multiverse }
10-D: point of everything?

So, can you now imagine higher dimensions?

Party on for 25 hours!

2008-12-28T07:32:00.002+08:00

Update before new year comes: There will be another leap second added to our time, again to compensate with the slowing Earth rotation. The last time this was done was after the Indian Ocean tsunami 4 years ago. Yup, apparently that quake is powerful enough to brake the Earth slightly. So, when you guys countdown to 2009, make sure you go: 3, 2, 1, zero! Happy new year!!!

What's the major event that people around the world celebrate, and lasts for 25 hours? I can't think of a better answer than ushering in the new Gregorian Year. Two-thousand-and-nine, twenty-o-nine, two-zero-zero-nine... No matter how you prefer to call it, we're a few days away from that. It's just that us earthlings celebrate it in different time, simply because Earth rotates (duh...). But I'm sure you were asking, "Why 25 hours?"

You see, there's an imaginary international date line separating two regions so that they basically have different days. On one side, it could be Monday 8am, but across the line, it's 9am alright, just that it's still Sunday. So, get the idea of that line? Now, an even stranger thing... Someone just refused that the line be as straight as possible. Instead, one part of the line actually goes a long way to the east, only to cover a region. That place is a country called Kiribati, and it's so large that it covered 3 time zones! Well, they're just little islands and atolls covering a large area, that's all. One part of Kiribati, Line Islands, has the world's furthest forward time zone – UTC+14. Basically it means the time there is 14 hours ahead of London, or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). So it's natural that they celebrate new year first, while all of us are still waiting for countdown.

Next place in the world to celebrate new year is not one hour later though, it's 15 minutes. Yup, there are weird time zones designation around the world, but thank God they're rare... It's UTC+13:45, in Chatham Islands belonging to New Zealand. The time zone didn't stay there though, because they're having Daylight Saving Time now. It basically turns their clock forward one hour during summer to compensate with slower sunset. So the official time zone there is UTC+12:45.

Next up are familiar places: Wellington, Auckland (NZ), and not so familiar ones: Tonga and another portion of Kiribati. They yell "Happy New Year!" one hour after those in Line Islands. Another hour after that, it's the rest of Kiribati, Fiji, Tuvalu, Nauru, Marshall Islands and eastern tip of Russia's turn. OK, after that I won't get to specifics, but you can follow the link at the end of this post if you want to know more. Essentially, our time zone is the 11th to usher in the new year, a whole 6 hours after the first new year euphoria.

The celebration moves westwards, through the rest of Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. So, the last region to celebrate new year is... Samoa and Niue, if you're talking about places where humans do live in the first place. I mean, there's another time zone having its clocks at 11pm while they cheer of the new year, it's just that those are places where we think are inhabited. No one lives there, so why bother talking about new year? If not, the title would be "Party on for 26 hours!" The region I meant is the open waters at the east of the international date line, and a few landmasses like Howland Island and Baker Island. By then, it would be 8pm our time.

Great, I gave a lecture instead of some insights before the new year came... Well, if insights or "looking back" is what you wanted, just visit my Chinese blog. I'll sign off this post with a few links. This is about the odd Kiribati time zone that makes it the first place to turn 2009, while this gives the whole list of places and times where the new year will begin. Now, I better get ready with those party paraphernalia. Oh, and not to forget my camera! I wanna try to get those new year fireworks...

(P/S: Digest this while waiting for my 10-D post k?)

My personal notebook

2008-12-20T22:08:00.002+08:00

If you noticed my Facebook status message, you would have knew what I'm going to babble about later. Yup, I booked for a laptop during the recent PC Fair in KL, and I meant "booked" because that particular model has no stock that time. Five days later, I went and carry my "bounty" back, and the rest of the day was spent tweaking my notebook here and there until I get tired...

Initially, my "filter" of selecting a laptop was pretty simple, namely "must have Centrino 2 processor". Even if it's Core 2 Duo, sorry... OUT! Why that processor? Well, it has the 45nm architecture that I was waiting for ages... The special thing about this (transistor) length is: it wouldn't be possible without the latest breakthrough in transistor fabrication, which is basically hafnium and high-k materials. Long story short, it drastically reduces heat dissipation that bogged previous generations of processors, so heat and power consumption should no longer be a major issue.

Actually, I'm not very good at brand recognition, and have no particular choice of laptop brand to start with, unlike many of my friends. But I do have a filter for that – no Dell. Yep, I heard enough complaints about this brand that I'm awared enough to filter that out. Then, the next step is simply... collect brochures. After a round upstairs of KL Convention Centre, I've obtained enough information I need to make a decision.

Finally the showdown is between Acer and Asus. On my left, an Acer Aspire 6935G-842G32, with P8400 (2.26 GHz), 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 16" screen and Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT for RM4499. On the right, an Asus M51Vr24PDM, with P8600 (2.4 GHz), 4GB RAM after upgrade, 320GB HDD, 15.4" display and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 for RM3788. If you were me, which one would you prefer?

In the end, I got an Asus laptop (what you guys think?) mainly because of the price and processor clock speed. After getting my hands on the notebook, I realised that the ATI graphics card I have isn't really the "best in its class", meaning it's just decent for games but not exceptionally good. You can say that's my little regret of buying this laptop, but I'm not a hard-core gamer anyway, as my friends would know...

So, my apologies for making you read this nonsense until the end. I hope I can get some response on my recent purchase, and please do so in my chatbox there. >>>

Meanwhile, I'm gonna torture my laptop till I'm contented. [evil cackle]

YouTube Live

2008-12-16T13:56:00.008+08:00

I don't know about you guys, but I just discovered some interesting videos from YouTube Live. Yeah, I know the event ended "ages" ago, but have you bother to watch or share those priceless scenes? I mean, how many of you really went to the event's channel and look back at the event on 22 November? (let alone watch the event live?)

The thing is, I'm done watching the full show in the U.S. event only, but haven't started on the Japan one. That said, I'll continue this post with some highlights of that event, which I find impressive. Of course, I hope you would enjoy 'em too!

I see nothing! / Open in new window

I purposely downloaded the video above, re-encoded it and upload it somewhere. Why? This video got SO MANY hits that I don't feel like adding more to it. Anyway if you support this video by being another number on the "Views" section, go ahead...

I welcome any suggestion of interesting clips from YouTube Live, both from U.S. and Japan. Besides, my blog is currently (read: at posting time) lacking of "how"s aka comments if you haven't realised.

Serenia Gardens

2008-12-14T01:10:00.013+08:00

Let me start this post with a video...

Download higher quality AVI file (Xvid encoded)

You may be wondering, "what's so special about it?" right?
The thing is... I've been there before.
"And so what... what 'cha doing there anyway?"

My relative had bought a house in a project known as the title above. It's situated riiiiight at the end of Jalan Ukay Perdana, which is like the "only" road to access the residential area. So, that relative wanted us to sorta update them on the project site, since we live close to that place. I fired up Google Earth, and look for that particular spot. Slightly disappointed, it wasn't updated to show any land clearing (it was pictures in 2005 at post time). However, I noticed a structure nearby. That made me wonder, how could there be a nicely erected building in an area so far in?

Well, guess what structure is it on the right-side picture...

Of course, my dad and I decided to get a look. The road there isn't complicated, since we just follow the same road uphill. Then we reached that spot...

Guess what we found...?

Yup... I don't need to repeat here. I'm a bit surprised to see this institute right in the middle of "nowhere". Another surprise (or not) is that it belongs to UMNO. I guess it may get you thinking that the party has a "secret base" here. Hmm, it does have this feeling though.

Inside, we got a very good view of the project site. It's just like what you saw in the video above. This time, I'll present the "proof" that I wuz der...


If you think this is terrible enough, look on the right...	Gosh... How do you climb that slope?

Pointing the camera where I shouldn't point... towards the inside XD	This is the "end" of Jalan Wangsa Ukay, for now at least...

What coincidence... The TV3 crew has recently been there, obviously following up on the tragedy at Bukit Antarabangsa. Yeah, the reporter was spot on: When will we/they stop making the same mistakes?

I'll leave it here... Meanwhile, I have bad news for my relative. XD

Is this how we remember the 15th year?

2008-12-07T01:06:00.012+08:00

Earlier the title was "... we celebrate the 15th year", but then obviously I replaced the word "celebrate", coz it just isn't right in this context. What I mean was the recent tragedy in Bukit Antarabangsa. There were two different but interlinked incident happening in that area, clearly the fresh landslide was one of it. Another one happened 15 years ago, around 1.5 km from the latest collapse site. It was the Highland Tower tragedy that claimed 48 lifes.

There were of course many, many incidents between now and 15 or more years ago around the same region, but it seems like some quarters are simply ignorant or forgetful. Maybe they don't live in the area and have the same feeling as long-time residents there. Maybe they think the demand is rather high, that many would want to live in a hilly place. Maybe they're simply hoping for profits, to build bungalows there, sell it and forget it.

I bet the developers in the latter case should be feeling the heat now... (rugi besar la...)

Just last year or early this year, there was a movement known as "Save Melawati Hill", which strongly protests further development on their area, especially on slopes. I guess little of you still remember this group. I myself live around that area, but fortunately there was no incident of landslide in my neighbourhood, or at least the risk is quite low. However, I saw a letter from a developer who wanted to make a few blocks of 7–8 storeys apartment right behind our house! And that means cutting the hill behind us to build it. We totally hate the idea and wrote a reply to oppose it. So far, no response, and it seems like the project is still on.

Now, equipped with this fresh incident, my dad wanted to send another letter to them. He is such a great man, and he even have an explaination to that landslide. Here goes...

– There were not much rain during D-day and the day before, so many may wonder how could that trigger a landslide. That's not the exact cause, but it's a part of a bigger factor.
– Looking at past rainfall data, the area had a gap of rain and non-rainy days. Here comes the "eureka" moment...
– When there are clear skies, the surface soil becomes dry and may have cracks. Water may seep through when there's a (heavy) rain. Of course, that adds up to the amount of water underground which did not go anywhere.
– Just as a piece of rock in the desert, extremely hot in the day and chilly cold at night, the rock will gradually turn into fine grains of sand because of the large temperature change. The "extreme" conditions could also be applied here. When the water below reaches a critical stage, it will cause the slope to fail and collapse.

Click image above to enlarge.

The "explanation" above is not entirely my father's; I did add a bit to it. To me it's pretty convincing. I've prepared an animation on the left showing the area affected and how much rain it gets over the month, just to make you guys understand better.

My prayers go out to those who are involved in that incident. Let us hope that those "quarters" that I've mentioned above can really learn from this one, which I think is close to impossible. Although I do hope that they didn't wait until another incident that involve those they cherish, love or even themselves, before they start with real actions.

(P/S: Just knew from Ms.Fiona that one of the 4 person killed in the landslide was Shaiful Khas, 20, which is an ex-student of my secondary school. Another death of fellow schoolmates...)

A Weird Dream

2008-12-05T18:25:00.004+08:00

I just had this on the morning of posting day. Although it may seem a bit too quick to talk about this, I just feel the urge to share it with my readers.

I didn't remember when it started, but the first thing I remembered is that I was in the toilet downstairs. The door is opened, but I'm not worried since I'm not doing any business anyway (i.e: my pants is not down). I wanted to go out, but found an orange stool (the "seat" stool, not the "faeces" stool), which unsurprisingly exists in my house, blocking the way. Just as I was about to reach the stool, it was moved away, and something heavy fell on me. It's my younger brother, and apparently he was standing on the stool, but I didn't notice him previously. A quick glance showed that a figure removed the stool.

It didn't hurt too much, and I didn't wake up at that instant. I came out and turn on the tap on the basin outside to sort of cool down the pain. When I raise my head to the window in front of me, a rather large bear (or polar bear?) was sitting behind the house. It wasn't in attacking mood, just staying there and looking around, giving me a glance once a while. My reaction was to shoo it away, but then someone appeared and pat the bear, as if it is a cat! That's my younger sister, which is well-known for her "care" for cats and teddy bear. Nope, the large living bear did not bear (pardon the pun) any resemblance to the teddy bear at home.

I left the basin and walk to my mother, asking her if she took away the stool just now. For no apparent reason, she flared up immediately. I then casually said something like "oh, so when I reach for the stool, you move it away without noticing my brother, and he fell on me la..." That is certainly not good on my mum's ear. Her temper was distracted by something happening behind the house. It seems that there is another bear behind the first (this time both are white/polar bears) and they're both making...... OK, I won't elaborate that further.

Mum wanted me to eat a bowl of stuff on the table. There's some dark paste in a rice bowl, and it turns out to be chilli paste with a few pieces of meat in it. It wasn't really "hot" that I wanted to blow fire, but just a plain "numbing" sensation. If I chew further I would not be able to move my mouth.

After swallowing it, mum was gone from sight. I walked to the opened front door and saw a little mouse in front. Of course, it's natural to shoo it away, and the pest scurried out into the rainy outdoor. The thing is, it wasn't raining before that... Not long after that, I was awake.

Whoa, mind bending imagination... The dreams I usually had should involve some sci-fi and friends around me, especially ex-classmates. This one is simply an exception......

[slaps your face]

OK, wake up dude! End of story!

Norway Hat?

2008-12-04T19:02:00.002+08:00

You may wonder, "why is your blog named like that?"

Well, it's an anagram of my real name. What's an anagram? Simply said, it's a rearrangement of letters to form a sensible new word. It is popularised in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, where Tom Marvolo Riddler is actually an anagram of "I am Lord Voldermort". Try to compare it letter by letter, and be surprised!

Again, I may get questions like "aren't you worried about your privacy? You're using a username that may reveal your real identity..." Well, I did some calculations. Nine-letter word arranged in all possible forms is basically 9 factorial. 9! = 362,880. That's not all, because there are spaces between letters right? There are 222 ways of separating a nine-letter word. Multiply that by 9! yields 80,559,360, which is 80.56 million possible combinations! So, should I be worried?

Still, I'm sure that the odds of knowing my name if you know me in-person, is never 1/80559360.

P/S: Check out the anagram of your name (and just about anything) here!

Started blogging...

2008-11-30T23:12:00.002+08:00

After starting my first website hosted on Geocities years ago, I finally started this blog, after seeing many of my friends doing so.

I bet they're surprised that I have started blogging, and it's like I have started this "by popular demand".

I admit that creating a website, a REAL website is tedious. Having a blog is much simpler, and you can easily customize the HTML part of it, like a real website.

So, why this day? 30th of November 2008. Written in numbers, it's 30-11-2008. 30 minus 11 equals? 19, my age now. 19 minus 2008? –1989, taking out the negative and that's by year of birth (obviously).

I initially planned to start my first entry on 31-12-2008, but that means I'll have to wait another month, and it's New Years Eve. There's surely a better way to spend time on that day besides typing in front of the computer.

So that's about it for now. Stay tuned for more updates!