Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Draw a house

Come come, take the personality test. Unleash the artist in you!
http://www.drawahouse.com/takethetest/index.asp?street=cc57afae2deb529eae32af21550c1fb0


 


My houses:


 


  


 



 


 
To view my street just visit: http://www.drawahouse.com/streets/Creative-Street/


 


 

A tiny drop of music...

...has been dissolved into this blog.

 

This has been something I wanted to do for a long time. Please feel free to enjoy the relaxing melody of *Bassa Nova music by pressing the little Play button on the left side of the page. The song is called Girl from Ipanema , by Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto.

 

*Bassa Nova definition -

 

A style of music developed in the south east of Brazil that merges samba rhythms with jazz-influenced harmonies and melodies.

 

 

Anwz recently a programme in Yes 933 introduced the songs of a local a cappella group call Budak Pantai, which I found is quite interesting and creative. What these musicians do is that they "give songs an extreme makeover... often with hilarious results." This is their website, you can check up the soundclips there. Songs I found quite nice there are Ai Hen Jian Dan , All Rice , The Log Cake Song  and Sar Tan.

 

There are two songs I like a lot: Yi Bei Cha  and Tribute to Titanic . But too bad it's either too short or not included in the soundchips. But nevermind, I'll put them here once I bought the album. =)

 

 

   

Magicians

(For my own record purpose)

 

Jean Eugene Robert Houdin (1805-1871) - Father of Modern Magic

 

Alexander Herrmann (1843-1896)

Joseph Buatier De Kolta (1848-1903) - magician + tricks seller

 

John Nevil Maskelyne (1939-1917) - Keller's rival

Harry Kellar (1849-1922) - Maskelyne's rival

 

David Devant (1868-1941) - Maskelyne's partner

Howard Thurston (1869-1936) - Kellar's successor

 

Charles Morrit (1860-1936) - Houdini's friend

Harry Houdini (1874-1926)

 

PT Selbit (1881-1938) - invented Sawing the Lady

Guy Jarrett (1881-1972)

 

Source: Hidding the Elephant - How Magician Invented the Impossible  by Jim Steinmeyer

 

 

 

Monday, March 20, 2006

My element is Gust (wind)











Gust
~ 44% Water ~ 70% Wind ~ 44% Earth ~ 55% Fire ~


I want to live where the sky is big


Simple and free...


 


Let's see... your personality reminds me of the...


...cool Sapphire, the non-red corundum, or its little brother, the Blue Topaz. Your colours are azure, indigo, and a bright yellow or gold.


Interpretation:


Out of the seven chakras, the Throat Chakra, which is associated with the element of wind and represents our desire to learn and communicate, seems to be predominant in you. Though this means you are probably the smartest one among your friends, it may result in feeling stressed or nervous or becoming too much of a perfectionist.


You can balance it by wearing a Rose Quartz; its soothing attributes help unwind, enable you to "love thyself", and accept limitations.


A Tarot references concerning your predominant element:


If you are a young lass or lad and still unmarried your card is the Page of Swords. Young women, especially married ones, identify with the Queen of Swords, also known as the Queen of Spades. If you are a young, unmarried man, you are the Knight of Swords, and married or mature males are identified with the King of Sword, commonly known as the King of Spades. Ladies and gentlemen, here is your intelligent man you've been looking for.


These are the results you will get if you score highly on...


None of the four elements: Balance Wind: Gust Fire: Blaze Water: River Earth: Valley Wind & Fire: Thunder Wind & Water: Clouds Wind & Earth: Canyon Fire & Earth: Lava Fire & Water: Tornado Water & Earth: Trees Wind, Fire & Earth: Storm Wind, Fire & Water: Stars Wind, Water & Earth: Forest Fire, Water & Earth: Avalanche All four elements: Harmony



 


 



 


Just as expected. Intercept too much wind le.


 


http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=5009339405940095754


 


 

Sunday, March 19, 2006

3000 page views


The most useless visitor tracker in the world - of the 3000 page views, I think 2900 is mine.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

忙与盲

歌曲: 忙与盲      歌手: 黄立行

 

曾有一次晚餐和一张床
在什么时间地点和哪个对象
我已经遗忘我已经遗忘
生活是肥皂香水眼影唇膏
许多的电话在响
许多的事要备忘
许多的门与抽屉
开了要关关了又开如此的慌张
我来来往往我匆匆忙忙
从一个方向到另一个方向

忙忙忙忙忙忙
忙是为了自己的理想
还是为了不让别人失望


盲盲盲盲盲盲
盲得已经没有主张
盲得已经失去方向


忙忙忙盲盲盲
忙得分不清欢喜和忧伤
忙得没有时间痛苦一场


 

****************

 

I just read a friend's blog. I just realised

 

I am so busy that I forgot to watch HuangCheng.

My friends are so busy that they forgot to ask me to watch HuangCheng.

 

Well well...

 

 

Monday, March 13, 2006

MSN nick

“以古为镜,可以知兴荣。”

 

This is my friend's msn nick. My first reaction:

 

"Wah Kao!"

 

I think she never read my blog, so it doesn't matter. Anyway she's my JC CCA mate. She is a very good friend of mine, once. But we almost never contact each other any more. She has her own life, I have mine. I guess it's inevitable in all friendships. I am glad to know such a nice girl like her though. =)

 

However everytime I think of her I just can't help comparing between she and I. Heaven is so unfair.

 

She's very pretty. She's cultured. She knows dance, practices chinese calligraphy etc etc. (Note: even our president also practice calligraphy.) She has a boyfriend. She's about to graduate if not graduated already. She joined PAP. She can think of such a chim nick. She is not from LEP, that means chinese is not her strongest forte. (In fact I won't be surprised if any of my LEP friends have this nick.) She has a bright future.

 

 

(And she's typical of most of my female JC friends from my batch.)

 

I'm not pretty. (I didn't say I'm not handsome though.) I'm not very cultured. I know how to scold bad words, and stop practicing calligrapgy years ago. A girlfriend don't have me. I have still a long way to graduation. I joined SLP. I can never think of a chim nick. I only know 天将降大任于斯人也, 必先苦其心志,劳其筋骨,饿其体肤,空乏其身。And it is too long to be a nick. I studied A level higher chinese, yet my chinese also buay zai, england no nit to say le. Lastly, if I "以古为镜", I can foresee I will do tutorials until I die.

 

Haiz... Life... Sianz....

 

 

Sunday, March 5, 2006

See stars

Look at this formula that appears in my lecture notes:

 


iD = ID - id


Somehow I just can't help but feel du lan.  I find it hard even to compare whether it is the same formula as this:


 


id = iD - ID


 


Is it the same??


 


 

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

A new look

Just discovered this fiery theme and I think it looks very nice. Therefore I'll keep it around for a while. In case you noticed, I've changed the title of my blog also. In case you never noticed, the old name was called 'Random Ramblings', which is quite cliche I think. So I've decided to change the title to an example of a random rambling - hence 'What are the Orcs?'. You guys don't know what it means right? It's ok, you are not alone. Me also dunno. As I've said, it's random and it's a rambling, so it doesn't necessarily need to mean anything. This also applies to the philosophy of my blog also -all the entries here are just ramblings (synonym: crap) and I guess this particular entry demostrate this very well.

 

But well, who care anwz?

 

Btw this fiery background can be associated with the very popular comic that  I'm reading now - Fire Phantom Patient Guy (loosely translated from 火影忍者), also known as Naruto. Heheh. Those who are interested can read it from this website:

 


 

Highly recommended... It's a 5 star comic man!

 

Here's another link to another: http://manhua.fzdm.com/7/

 

Nice comic also. Bleach.

 

That's all folks.

 

 

Monday, February 27, 2006

A cok nightmare

The background was the busiest city of China, Shanghai. Everywhere was full of people. It was a free and easy tour and I entered Shanghai's equivalent of MRT. The first strange thing I saw my dad and his colleague was squating on the train, concentrating on repairing something. (My dad was not a train technician, and definitely not in Shanghai.) I was surprised and walked happily to him. Then an announcement was made through the intercom:

 

"We'll be conducting a simulation of a terrorist bomb attack now. We want to know what is the reaction of people when the train is overturned. Participation is compulsory. Please do not worry, it's only a simulation."

 

The doors went shut. 

 

'Wah lan eh, na beh so suay!!! '  is my first reaction. I quickly braced myself against the overturn of train by leaning with my back against side of the train. Luckily there's no one else on the opposite side so no one will fall on top of me when the train overturns.

 

Suddenly there are 2 cars driving into the train and stop right in front of me! Then the train starts to overturn...

 

ARGHHHHHHHHH.....

 

I woke up.

 

 

 

Anyone can decipher the dream??

 

(Hmmm... cock is forbidden to use as a title??)

 

 

 

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

The Wiki History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less

Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual reproduction. Fossilization. Land exploration. Dinosaur extinction. Mammal expansion. Glaciation. Homo sapiens manifestation. Animal domestication. Food surplus production. Civilization! Innovation. Exploration. Religion. Warring nations. Empire creation and destruction. Exploration. Colonization. Taxation without representation. Revolution. Constitution. Election. Expansion. Industrialization. Rebellion. Emancipation Proclamation. Invention. Mass production. Urbanization. Immigration. World conflagration. League of Nations. Suffrage extension. Depression. World conflagration. Fission explosions. United Nations. Space exploration. Assassinations. Lunar excursions. Resignation. Computerization. World Trade Organization. Terrorism. Internet expansion. Reunification. Dissolution. World-Wide Web creation. Composition. Extrapolation?

Copyright 1996-1997 by Eric Schulman.

This piece was the inspiration for the book A Briefer History of Time and led to the Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project. Reprinted from the AIR, Volume III, Number 1, January/February 1997, page 27.

 

A quote from Kong Zi

A JC classmate told me this while we are chatting about how to improve one's charisma on the MSN:

 

“诚其心,正其意,修其身,齐其家,治其国,平其天下。”

 


Think about it...


 


 

A black device

Has been thinking/dreaming of inventing a small handheld device that can provide infinite knowledge/ideas/stimulations for the mind. I imagined it to be a 5cm black cubic lump of metal mass with a few buttons, and it is strange, magical and exotic. What can be the basis for such a device? 

 

Food for thought... Hmmm...

 

 

Monday, February 20, 2006

My Johari Window









Arena


(known to self and others)

friendly, happy, intelligent, introverted, quiet


Blind Spot


(known only to others)

able, accepting, adaptable, calm, caring, cheerful, clever, complex, confident, dependable, extroverted, giving, helpful, independent, ingenious, knowledgeable, logical, modest, organised, patient, reflective, relaxed, searching, self-assertive, sensible, sentimental, shy, silly, trustworthy, warm, wise, witty


Façade


(known only to self)


Unknown


(known to nobody)

bold, brave, dignified, energetic, idealistic, kind, loving, mature, nervous, observant, powerful, proud, religious, responsive, self-conscious, spontaneous, sympathetic, tense


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dominant Traits


52% of people agree that Jiefeng is friendly


All Percentages


able (4%) accepting (9%) adaptable (4%) bold (0%) brave (0%) calm (28%) caring (4%) cheerful (14%) clever (28%) complex (4%) confident (4%) dependable (14%) dignified (0%) energetic (0%) extroverted (9%) friendly (52%) giving (4%) happy (14%) helpful (28%) idealistic (0%) independent (9%) ingenious (4%) intelligent (19%) introverted (9%) kind (0%) knowledgeable (23%) logical (23%) loving (0%) mature (0%) modest (4%) nervous (0%) observant (0%) organised (19%) patient (38%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (19%) reflective (9%) relaxed (33%) religious (0%) responsive (0%) searching (4%) self-assertive (4%) self-conscious (0%) sensible (14%) sentimental (9%) shy (14%) silly (4%) spontaneous (0%) sympathetic (0%) tense (0%) trustworthy (23%) warm (9%) wise (4%) witty (9%)


 


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Description Breakdown (21 people)


Michelle Liang thinks: helpful, patient, shy, trustworthy, knowledgeable.
shuhui thinks: calm, clever, logical, sensible, introverted, helpful.
Song'en thinks: friendly, relaxed, logical, happy, accepting.
yv thinks: calm, friendly, shy, patient, relaxed.
Justin thinks: helpful, friendly, relaxed, independent, searching.
manda thinks: clever, friendly, dependable, helpful, relaxed.
denice thinks: calm, organised, dependable, sensible, knowledgeable, accepting.
Jienan thinks: helpful, clever, knowledgeable, able, relaxed, quiet.
jiamin thinks: patient, knowledgeable, calm, intelligent, logical, friendly.
Yi Hui thinks: witty, cheerful, caring, logical, clever.
jiahong thinks: ingenious, witty, trustworthy, friendly, knowledgeable, silly.
xiangbin thinks: relaxed, intelligent, cheerful, organised, shy.
weiling thinks: clever, calm, patient, modest, trustworthy.
xiao mei thinks: relaxed, helpful, organised, dependable, clever, friendly.
peifang thinks: cheerful, giving, trustworthy, intelligent, reflective.
Kim Sim thinks: extroverted, friendly, patient, sentimental, confident.
zhijian thinks: introverted, quiet, calm, independent, patient, complex.
CHRISTINA thinks: friendly, warm, trustworthy, organised, patient.
sheena thinks: intelligent, self-assertive, reflective, quiet, logical.
ny thinks: happy, quiet, patient, warm, wise, friendly.
HealthyG thinks: extroverted, sentimental, adaptable, friendly, sensible, happy.


 


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 


Conclusion


My most dominant characteristcs (other than friendly) are patient (38%) and relaxed (33%), followed by calm, clever, helpful (28%) and logical, knowledgeable, trustworthy (23%).


 


Not bad i guess, and quite true also. I must be really relaxed and calm in order to stack my undone tutorials until so high. =P 


 


 

Monday, February 13, 2006

Mage

This guy has occupied most of my time for the past 2-3 month. But it's time to say goodbye. Farewell my little level 45 mage in the World of Warcraft, for now.

 

 

Monday, January 30, 2006

Horoscope











Aquarius, AB+, Dog









 
























性情多变,直觉敏锐,但与人不能友好相处。
水瓶AB型的人很会察言观色,分析市场能力强,直觉敏锐,是做生意赚大钱的好苗子,但属狗虽然诚实,与人的合作关系却比较差,不善于处理好人际关系,生意场中也时常会出现一些分歧,通常都会不欢而散。
不过,直觉灵敏的市场分析让你在生意场中也站有一席之地,你的诚恳也让生意场中的伙伴感到信任。
如果与人相处上能稍微改变一下自己的态度,能与生意中的伙伴做到更友好地相处,那么生意就会越做越大,钱财也就会越来越多。
  
 速配:水瓶座,A型血,属鸡

 


http://astro.lady.tom.com


 


 

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Birthday

If there's any friends who wants to wish me Happy Belated Birthday, you can do so here. =)

 

Anwz, I had a kind of 'strange' birthday yesterday (21 Jan). A long long never contact JC classmate of mine suddenly suddenly called up and asked me to do a transaction with his friend at Woodlands MRT station. He told me that the transaction involve exchanging a bag of some ink cartridges, a hp, some dunno wat and some money with some bags of textbooks, a camera and many dunno wat.

 

A question mark immediately pop right up my head: WTF??

 

Then he told me that he had some misunderstanding with this person, and then she lives near Woodlands, and I happened to live in Woodlands also, and that's why he asked for my help.

 

So I agreed to help him (since he's my friend, it is a 'she', and the whole thing sounds interesting), despite I was wondering whether he's asking me to smuggle drugs...

 

We met at the void deck before the 'operation', and he gave me my mission briefing.

 

The story goes like this: My friend and her, whose name is L, contacted each other using email. And he is a 'she' whose name is P in the email. Then it happens that  P (he) 'get' chicken pox recently. However P thought she is well enough to meet L, but it turns out that she is actually NOT well enough to meet her. So Me, who is P's brother, takes P's place and do the transaction for her last minute (and L doesn't know).

 

Then my friend let me see L photo and told me that she will be wearing yellow and waiting at the ticketing machines. Lastly he told me she doesn't speak chinese. (Sian diao...) 

 

Then I went to the train station carrying the goods, she's not here yet. So I sat down and waited and looked around... then I saw a girl standing a few metres away in front me, wearing yellow, carrying 3 bags of stuff, back facing me, looking at the train gates.

 

I thought to myself: It isn't very often that a girl wear yellow, carry 3 big bags and waiting for someone. This must be her.

 

(And I felt grateful that I am borned smart so that I can reach such a difficult-to-reach conclusion.) 

 

So I walked the shortest distance (straight) towards her and kind of 'pop' up right in front of her,

 

"Hi, are you L?"

 

First impression: She looked chio.

 

But she looked stunned too.

 

"Err yes..."

 

"I'm P's brother. She asked me to pass you these."

 

So we exchanged our goods and I left right away since I don't know what to say (bcoz my angmo buay siu). The whole transaction took less than a minute.

 

She still looked stunned even as I left.

 

I took the goods back to my friend who was waiting at my void deck. Then he left after checking the goods. Luckily it's not drug... And that's the end of the story, an interesting episode on my birthday. =P

 

 

Moral of the story: 

 

Never approach a chiobu from behind.

 

Or

 

Never approach an angmo-speaking chiobu when your angmo is buay siu.

 

 

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Production

Quote from my previous entry:

 

"WHY IN HELL do I agree to join Production, which requires me to work like shit, burn my Sundays, yet still have to canvess (pay) $250, and sell 10 tickets? (This won't happen again.)"

 

Actually despite all my complaints, somehow or rather, I found that I've been joining productions throughout my school years since I first joined HuangCheng in JC. And the answer to the above question is...

 

... Everytime when I look back at the 3 productions I've joined, no matter what post I was in (J1 as Publicity Member, J2 as Publicity Leader, Uni Yr 1 as Props Member), I'll feel the deep sense of satisfaction of a job well done, even up til now.

 

And that's why I decided to help my cock roomie when he agreed to become the Props Master when he don't know anything about props. Props... Haha... I can still remember that when I first joined HuangCheng in JC, I first joined as Props... for ONE day, before I deflect to Publicity, after I found out how xiong Props is. To think now even though I know there's a shit hole in front of me, I still step right into the middle of it... not once, but twice! (Last year and this year =)

 

Now that we've found most of our props, it's not that stress anymore, and so it's ok now. And I was actually quite touched by some of the subcommers and producers and directors for actually helping us to find the stuff we need. 2 of the girls even carry empty boxes from as far as SRC back to hall to give us. This is the one thing you won't found in most other ECAs: a sense of commradeship - people helping each other to make the thing a success. If you guys (as in all my subcommers and producers and directors) are reading this, you have my most truely heartfelt thanks.

 

I hope that this year's hall production will be a success. And lastly, I got TEN tickets to sell (arghhh!), PLEASE BUY TICKETS FROM ME!

 


 

  

Friday, January 13, 2006

Bridge Theories

Law of Total Tricks (by Larry Cohen)

 

The total number of cards in opponents' suit and your partnership's suit =

The number of tricks you will make playing in your suit +

The number of tricks your opponent will make playing in their suit

 

Eg. If your opponents have 8 card fit in hearts and you have 9 card fit in spades,

 

the number of tricks your opponent will make playing in hearts 

the number of tricks you will make playing in spades is 17

 

That means

if you make 10 playing in spades, opponent will make 7 playing in hearts,

if you make 9 playing in spades, opponent will make 8 playing in hearts and so on...

 

 

So how do we use this law? To be continued...

Questions

Some mysteries in life...

 

Why are there always more outings/gatherings in January than December?

 

Why do people (like me) who are busy in December always mistaken that they will be less busy in January?

 

Why do 1/12 of the people who are busy in January have their birthdays fall on the same month?

 

WHY IN HELL do I agree to join Production, which requires me to work like shit, burn my Sundays, yet still have to canvess (pay) $250, and sell 10 tickets? (This won't happen again.)

 

Since when do people in logistics do video?? (No way man.)

 

When will I realise that though friends are friends, there is a limit to the amount help I'm willing to rendered? (About now.)

 

Is playing computer games a way of escaping from reality? (I'm quite far away from reality now =)

 

Sianz...

 

 

Saturday, January 7, 2006

Oxymoron

Thanks Chioboo for your concern! But I feel that feeling emotionless is better than feeling unhappy or stress...

 

Anwz, talking about oxymorons, I saw a friend's nick (advertisement for our hall bash) on the MSN -

 

Zouk this sat, $16 for 2 free drinks!! anyone?

 

Hmmmm...

 

Btw, school is starting this coming monday, everyone jiayou!

 

An interesting typical conversation that happened a few times last week -

 

Friend: Today you no lesson ah?

Me: This week I no lessons.

Friend: How come?

Me: This week no tutorial wat.

Friend: ......

 

Haha!

 

 

Monday, January 2, 2006

Bridge Scoring

 

DUPLICATE BRIDGE SCORING TABLE









































If Trumps are:

Clubs


Diamonds


Hearts


Spades

For each odd trick bid and made:
Undoubled:

20


20


30


30

Doubled:

40


40


60


60

Redoubled:

80


80


120


120




























AT A NO TRUMP CONTRACT:

Undoubled


Doubled


Redoubled

For the first odd trick bid and made:

40


80


160

For each additional trick:

30


60


120

A trick score of 100 points or more,
made on one board, is GAME.
A trick score of less than 100 points is a PART-SCORE


























PREMIUM SCORE:


x

For making a Slam:

Not Vulnerable


Vulnerable

Small Slam bid and made:

500


750

Grand Slam bid and made:

1000


1500





























OVERTRICKS:

x


x

For each Overtrick:
*tricks made in excess of Contract

Not Vulnerable


Vulnerable

Undoubled:

Trick Value


Trick Value

Doubled:

100


200

Redoubled:

200


400





























PREMIUMS FOR GAME / PART-SCORE
FULFILLING CONTRACT:

x

For making GAME, vulnerable:

500

For making GAME, not vulnerable:

300

For making any PART-SCORE:

50

For making any doubled Contract:

50

For making any redoubled Contract:

100



































UNDERTRICK PENALTIES:
*Scored by Declarer's Opponents
if the Contract is not fulfilled

x

**Not Vulnerable**:

Undoubled


Doubled


Redoubled

For each Undertrick:

50


100


200

For each additional Undertrick:

50


200


400

Bonus for the 4th and each additional Undertrick:

0


100


200






























UNDERTRICK PENALTIES:
*Scored by Declarer's Opponents
if the Contract is not fulfilled

x

**Vulnerable**:

Undoubled


Doubled


Redoubled

For each Undertrick:

100


200


400

For each additional Undertrick:

100


300


600

Bonus for the 4th and each additional Undertrick:

0


0


0


 


Sunday, January 1, 2006

Happy New Year!

Actually I've been feeling quite emotionless (hmmm... feel emotionless??) these days. New year? New year new year lor, what's there to be excited about?? Maybe I finally attained the state of Buddism's 'emptiness'. Anwz, if there is anything I want to wish for in year 2006...

 


  1. Get more As to decorate my Bs in the upcoming sems, and no Cs please.

  2. Me, my family and my friends stay healthy and happy. 

Has been thinking of my HC friends recently - classmates, seniors, juniors, angels, mortals, cca friends etc, esp those I haven't seen in a long long while... wondering how have they been. I guess I'm too lazy to call them up or to organise an outing or something. Hopefully we'll have a chance to meet during CNY eve. Anwz hereby I sincerely wish them to have a Happy New Year. Take care friends. =)


 


 

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Butterfly Effect

A butterfly flapping its wings in South America can affect the weather in Singapore.

 

- Chaos Theory (paraphrased a bit by me =P)

 

Loitering around the VCD rental shop today, suddenly thought of one movie mentioned in my Chinese Cinema module that doesn't follow the Aristotelian narrative structure. So I rent the movie and watched it just now.

 

I was absolutely impressed. If you think Sixth Sense is good, Butterfly Effect is better. Highly recommended if you like story with a very good twist.

 

 

PS. Btw a story with Aristotelian narrative structure is simply a story with the following characteristics in order:

 


  1. Introduction

  2. Exposition

  3. Development

  4. Conflict

  5. Climax

  6. Resolution

Basically it's very very very hard to find a story WITHOUT Aristotelian narrative structure, especially a good one. Watch Butterfly Effect!


 


 

Holiday


Time ......... Gone.

 

What the hell have I been doing this holiday? Do you guys sometimes have the feeling that sometime time just past by without you doing anything meaningful? Have I been living my life in vain??

 

Better let me make a summary of what I did in the hols. (Roughly in chronological order)

 


  1. Went KL and Genting. Tried paintball.

  2. Did ACCA invilgilaton for 4 days.

  3. Bridge trainings.

  4. Assembled 2.5 Gundams. (The other 0.5 finish by today.)

  5. Did $50 worth of data entry.

  6. Lead my hall bridge team to win the fifth place. (Almost got a fourth. Lost to Song'en's team.)

  7. Rejoicing my B of a kind exam results.

  8. Bring my cousin's and their kids (from Malaysia) around Singapore. Science Center is a fun place. Damn shag playing with 3 kids for 4 days.

  9. Assembled 3 Lego toys for my cousin's kids. (The suitable age on the toy box is not accurate.)

  10. Watched 'The Promise' with my family. Everyone, please don't go and watch that show. Dunno what happened to Chen Kaige.

  11. Won a Weiqi game in the Interhall Games. (Out of 4.)

  12. Finding props for my hall production. (Who got airport chairs and park bench?? Help!)

  13. Done one full day of stocktaking in Carrefour, Suntec.

  14. Introduced to some new interesting award-winning board games from French. Quarto, Gobblet and Quoridor is particularly fun. www.familydiy.com

  15. Trained my Mage in World of Warcraft to level 24. He ganna fatal error and died yesterday. RIP.

  16. Plan timetable and registered subjects. Very satisfied with my timetable. No lessons in the mornings and on fridays... err... well, no tutorials actually.

  17. Meet up with my HC ChiangDao CIP friends. Long time no see! Played Quarto with them. Fun!

  18. Watched Wallace and Gromit. The penguin cartoon very funny. Overall ok. A bit boring in the beginning. 3 stars.

Seems like I've accomplished quite alot in this holidays... Hmmm...

 


 

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Skip Lecture Project Conclusion










Results


The long awaited outcome of our Skip Lecture Project, launched on 20 Sep 2004 (details below), is out! From our one and only volunteer's exam results, we've reached the conclusion that lectures has ZERO CORRELATION with exams results! 


 


Raw data: While his numbers of As decreased drastically by 2 (66% decrease) compared to his previous sem, he got no grades below B- in this sem. Though he may not be able to stay in ABP (Accelerated Bachelor Programme) any longer, but all in all, he is quite satisfied with his results. The slight drop in performance may be due to his heavy involvement in PDP (Play Dota Project).  


 


There's some drop in grades compared to his previous sem, but this is NOT the results we should see from one who has been SLPing throughout the sem, if there is any correlation between lectures and grades. Therefore we conclude that attending lectures is...


 


U S E L E S S


 


 


*************


Skip Lecture Project  (launched on  20 Sep 2004)


 


Introduction

Have you ever waked up at 7 in the morning and felt like smashing your alarm clock? Have you ever wanted to zao lesson but did not dare to for the fear of missing something important? Have you ever wondered if attending lectures is futile? 

 

If you have, you are not alone. (If you haven't, well... subconsciously you have.)

 

Let us introduce you to SLP, the Skip Lecture Project!

 

Hypothesis

SLP has an hypothesis -

 

Attending lectures have absolutely no correlation with the grades you get. (Therefore, you might as well don't go lectures.)

 

Aim

The aim of the SLP is to prove that this hypothesis is true so that all students don't have to attend lectures anymore!!!

 

Background

As professional students after 12+ years of education, we have observed some very strange phenomenon. Students in lecture tends do things like chit chatting, eating, sleeping, drooling, doing homework, smsing, playing with handphone's games (personal favorite), staring at the wall behind the lecturer etc etc. Every single thing except... listening to the lecturer. This is absolutely waste of time and students can make better use of their time studying (or sleeping) at home or in hall.

 

Then on the efficiency of lectures. Most lecturers read off directly from their slides, which is usually exactly the same as our lecture notes. We might as well read it on our own time own target (OTOT).

 

Lastly on the efficiency of human beings absorbing the materials taught. Research shows that a normal person's attention span is around 30 minutes tops. Yet, the duration of lectures are more than 2 hours most of the time. In addition, many lectures are after lunch breaks, when our body is spending energy digesting food and therefore can afford less energy for listening, ie. our attention span becomes shorter. (Do you feel sleep sooner in lectures after lunch?) From these, we can clearly see that it is not very efficient for students to sit 2 plus hours in a Lecture Theatre listening to lectures.

 

Base on the above evidences, SLP strongly suspect that lectures are useless.

 

Test

To test the hypothesis, SLP recruits professional students to skip lectures for an entire semester. If the grades he or she gets at the end of the sem are as good as or better than the other sems when he or she attends lectures, it proves that attending lectures and grades are totally unrelated.

 

Progress Report 

Currently we have ONE volunteer in our project. He is in NTU EEE year 2 and he has been skipping lectures for 4 consecutive weeks. (Although he attended lectures for the first 3 weeks of this sem, it doesn't invalidate the experiment since he was playing with handphone games most of the time during lectures anyway.) We have been constantly monitoring his progress and... well, he's not doing so fine right now. However, we do NOT think this is the consequence of him not attending lectures. Anw, we will have a conclusion after his examination result is out.

 

 

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!!!

 

We need a larger sample size to make our project more valid! Your effort (or lack of) will contribute to our grand and ultimate aim of abolishing lectures from every single country's education system! So don't hesitate, sign up today! PLEASE (join) SLP NOW!!!

 

 


Related Studies

Another project that is closely linked to our project is the Play Dota Project, PDP (also stands for Please DO Play). It investigates whether playing DOTA everyday will affect examination grades. Infomation on PDP will be out soon. Please return to this website regularly for further updates.