Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Good luck for your exam

Good luck for your exam bb. I was thinking of buying you some essence of chicken.

Monday, March 10, 2014

A song that describes my state of emotion now

There was a man, a lonely man
Who lost his love through his indifference
A heart that cared, that went unshared
Until it died in his silence

And Solitaire's the only game in town
And every road that takes him, takes him down
And by himself, it's easy to pretend
He'll never love again

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He's playing Solitaire

Another day, a lonely day
So much to say that goes unspoken
And through the night, his sleepless nights
His eyes are closed, his heart is broken

And Solitaire's the only game in town
And every road that takes him, takes him down
And by himself it's easy to pretend
She's coming back again

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He's playing solitaire

A little hope, goes up in smoke
Just how it goes, goes without saying
Solitaire
And by himself it's easy to pretend 
He'll never love again
Oh

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He's playing solitaire
Solitaire, solitaire

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Now I finally understand what they meant by the world is your oyster.

Monday, December 24, 2012

I did not question my existence in life.

I only sought to validate it. I wonder whether it is a futile existence.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

The passing of a great man

This is a picture of no ordinary man. This is the man who helped forge Singapore into a great success. And yet he remain nondescript till the end. After retiring from the cabinet in 1984, he slipped into obscurity and nothing was heard from him in official circles. Forgotten is the apt descriptory. If there was ever a biography of this man, it should be named the Unknown Story.

I am poised to describe Dr Goh as an engima. Never will we be able to get a maelstro who is able to juggle 3 heavy weight portfolios namely Defence, Finance and Education and be able to turn in a stellar performance consistently. If Lee shone as an outstanding politician then Dr Goh must have been the exemplary technocrat.

For all of his greatness, i knew little of this man. He had left the government before i was born and yet i benefited immensely from his lasting legacy although for the record, this was unbeknownst to the masses as well except for the older generation. For all of the vocally uncouth and bloated swagger i see from the current crop of newly minted politicians in Singapore, Dr Goh’s subtle style comes across as being refreshing. I wouldn’t know what Singapore would be like if this man hadn’t decided to stake his bet on a swampy and dingy island back in the 1960s.

I earnestly offer my thanks and gratitude. We Singaporeans are indebted to you and we owe you our success.

Rest in peace.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

a brief motoring history

My father’s first foray into motoring started with a humble EP70 Starlet. It was his kind and affable Sqn S3 who literally shoved the car keys to him and ask him to drive around. Yes that Starlet was his. Nice uncle. He knew that my dad was feeling uneasy about driving since he had not driven for a good 7 years since obtaining his licence. After taking the keys and driving the car for a good 2 week (Uncle Watt was on holidays for a good 2 weeks hence he passed him the car), he never looked back ever since.

 

The EP Starlet XL

Not too long later in 2001, he bought the venerable AE101. It was a manual 1600 Gli which was enjoyable to drive with good handling, decent power to weight ratio and low centre of gravity.

 

The AE101 Corolla (G7)

i was sad to see it go actually. Such a fine looking car. Not many COE specimens found nowadays.

My dad had scrapped the AE101 and bought a firsthand AE120 Corolla from Borneo Motors in 2003. Instead of a manual, he now opted for an automatic and the the 1500cc Xli had pretty high equipment specification levels. While i noticed most other corollas running around had fabric seats and manual dial air conditioning, ours came stock with leather seats and dual zone climate control. I affectionately called it the Hipporolla and it had a special place in my heart because it was the first car i drove. I remember her fondly for her frugality in fuel consumption and nimbleness.

 

The AE120 Corolla (G9)

I remember that i casually took a photo using my grainy handphone’s camera on a nondescript evening. It turned out the be the last time i every got to photograph the car. I can still feel a tinge of regret thinking about it. 14km/l fuel consumption with more than brisk traction. Who is going to complain about this hipporolla? Nissan and Honda i am sure. I supposed it was a good reason why the Hipporolla had to go. Curse the COE for irrevocably inprinting the impression that cars have an artificial shelf life of 10 years. I guess the high annual depreciation was abit too much too swallow for this ride too.

 

 

I would have to say that i am impressed by the NVH performance of the second iteration of the Altis. But i am not pleased about the worse off build quality considering that it hailed from Thailand. I am sorry but i think Thais are miles behind the Japanese when it comes to QC, work ethic and professionalism.

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

Enough about the reminiscing. Lets go to where it matters the numbers. As a driver, the numbers that matter to me in the performance department are namely;

1. Kerb weight

2. Torque band

3. Power band

4. Power to weight ratio

5. Torque to weight ratio

 

Comparison

 

1. Kerb weight

Newton’s first law as i quote here, prints

An object will remain in its state of rest or continue its motion in a straight line, in the direction it was originally intended for at zero acceleration in the absence of a net force.

Consequentially, this law can be interpreted to mean the law of Inertia in which an object has an inherent resistance to changes to its state of motion. This inherent resistance is proportional to its mass. By keeping the kerb weight low, the inertia is decreased and this helps to ensure two things.

1.) the net force required to change the car’s state of motion is minimal

2.) the time required to execute the change in state of motion is minimal

Honestly, who did say that everything is bound to get better with time with the development and refinement of technology? Look at the  kerb weight/ It is increasing! Damn it!

2.Torque band

The torque band is a graphical term, very much intended as a term to describe an engine’s torque output response in a dynamometer test. Ideally speaking, the engine should be able to throw out some torque at extremely low revs. Torque is required for all vehicles to start moving and it is the foundation which pick up is centred upon.

You don’t even have to chance to talk about how fast the vehicle is increasing its velocity if the vehicle is not even moving in the first place.

A good torque band is one which is flat and spreads out the torque adequately along a wide range of rpm. The reasoning against peaks in torque bands is because sudden increases in torque results in a very uncomfortable ride i.e. jerking. Deft control of the accelerator would be mandated thus a flatter torque band is desired.

 

3. Power band

Similar, you would want a wide spread of power across the rpm range. But honestly, you would want to prevent yourself from accidentally accelerating like a jackrabbit when you were originally planning to move really slowwwwwwly in the mall’s carpark prowling for a lot right? That means that you would want a increasing function for a power band. And oh, have you ever experienced the car running out of breath at a relatively high rpm of say 6500rpm? That’s because the power band has essentially ended its incline there. Abruptly. Ideally, you would want it to increase till say 10,000 rpm like in AE86’s 4A-GE. Woohoo

 

4/5. Power/Torque to weight ratio

We often heard of braggers boasting about their BHP figures. Honestly, BHP figures along are useless. Consider that you have an engine putting out 400BHP at crank. Impressive? YES when i fit it into a car that weighs maybe slightly over a tonne. How about a portly coach bus that weighs about 5 cars combined? Not that 2 fast 2 furious i am sure.

Power is defined generically as the rate at which work is being done. In our context, we are concerned with the rate at which the car’s velocity is being increased. And surely, the rate at which the velocity is increased is affected by the weight of the car. if the car is really hefty, it will really tax the engine more to accelerate at an equal rate as an identical engine mated to a light weight car.

I can offer no textbook numerical value for an ideal power to weight ratio. It is all subjective to an individual. To a driver used to driving Chery QQ, any other car’s power to weight ratio seems superb. To a newly converted driver used to riding a 2000cc bike, all NA cars fitted with any engine lower than 2400cc in capacity seems to be lacking in the power to weight ratio department.

For my study, i have opted to use the Honda Civic 2.0 Si as a reference because in my opinion, this car has the power to weight ratio which is ideal (to me) Data crunching matters, the power to weight ratio which is defined as W/kg should be as high as possible. Only the Hipporolla is close with 10 points off (which is still a staggering difference)

Like i mentioned earlier on, BHP is useless without torque, it is the BHP that keeps your car moving at an ever faster rate but it is the torque that shoves the car from standby in the first place. Ever asked a toddler to push a fully laden shopping trolley all the name of humour? That’s the point i am going to make. If an engine cannot make enough shove to push a car from rest, it is going to be HELLUVA work.

I have defined the torque to weight ratio as (kg/Nm). For example, an engine rated at 200Nm and mated to a car having a kerb weight of 2000 kg means that each Nm of torque is responsible to pushing 10 kg of deadweight. From this logic, it is understood that as opposed to the power to weight ratio which should be desirably high, the torque to weight ratio should be ideally as low as possible.

So now if you look at the Altis’s power to weight ratio and torque to weight ratio and compare it to its predecessor as well as the reference standard i.e. Honda Civic 2.0 Si, you understand why i am so depressed.

i have attached the torque/power bands of all 3 engines below for reference.

 

4AFE

4A-FE (AE101 Corolla G7)

 

1NZFE

1NZ-FE (AE120 Corolla G9)

 

3ZZFE

 

3ZZ-FE (AE140 Corolla Altis)

Thursday, May 06, 2010

WRT54G

Now i am thinking of getting a pair of high gain 9dBi omni directional antennae and porting the firmware to tomato so i go boost the Tx power from stock 40mW to 70mW. :/

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Life

Everyone is born into this world in the same manner and yet leaves this very same world in differing manners. Why is that so? Some would attempt to say that this is all due to everyone having different fates. I don’t want to get drawn into the Fate and Destiny discourse. I rather stay with the idea that Life is a culmination of a series of choices. How your life turns out depends on how good or how bad those choices were.

Every now and then, we are presented with a decision to be made. Accompanying this decision are choices. At certain times, there appears to be only one available and yet at other circumstances, other choices appear to be seemingly out of the realm of possibilities in which one can exercise options.

Choices are like doors. You are presented with doors and you choose which one to go through them. At times when Life seems to be a preordained motion of events, remember this; The door is in front of you. It is up to you to choose whether you would want to go through it or not.

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

Last afternoon, someone came over to my residence to do a check on my networking hardware and setup. I expected it to be simple and uneventful; the usual SOPs and the endorsement on the Work Order form and then normal life resumes. Sometimes Life presents surprises in mild ways you never know. I never expect thomas to be such an affable chap. I initially noticed glimpses of his friendliness when he unilaterally doled out url links which are “useful”. Heh

Next he started to gave out tips about optimising my home networking setup. Seems to me at this point that thomas is an overfriendly technician. He started to talk about changing the internet browser from IE8 (which is junk yes i know) to Masthon. By the way, Maxthon is an open source project combining the goodness of FF and Chrome so do-gooders, you know what to do.

The conversation which was barely existent at the onset sputtered into broken phrases, to and fro replies and finally dramatic expressions with animated gestures. What was supposed to be a monologue about TCP/IP, SN margins and whatsnot erupted into talk about the garmen, current affairs and cars! Sweeeeeeeet, i love talking about cars.

Turns out thomas just scrapped his old starlet and is just getting about finding a COE car. Our interesting conversation was peppered appropriately with comments like “hmmm, your internet connection is back on par now”, “oh i hear the thunder, inclement weather can affect DSL connectivity due to charge buildup in the atmosphere affecting the phone exchange cabinet” bla bla bla

What was supposed to be a 20-minute appointment ballooned into almost 3 hours LOL.I think he did mentioned in a subsequent conversation with my mum that he felt that there is affinity with me when i started talking. Haha. When he mentioned that, i decided that maybe friends do turn up at your doorsteps on a nondescript morning without invitation. Indeed, it was the case and we agreed unanimously to adjourn for lunch.

We go to school and we acquire school friends. Through life’s twists and turns, we collect friends and acquaintances through the common social spaces that we frequent. And with that, we acquire workplace friends, [insert place of worship] friends etc. As a matter of fact, we make friends while going through the routine of achieving whatever we were trying to do in our tenure at the said social space. Once the tenure has ended, one moves on. What decides whether those friends will continue to be friends?

Many a times i see people trying real damn hard to keep friendships together and it is clear that this is really a difficult enterprise. The reason behind this is that with the passage of time, one’s life changes and so does one’s circumstances and priorities in life. If the notion of these friendships do not remain relevant in one’s life, then it will simply wither and die. I don’t believe in sustaining an initiative which is incapable of surviving independently. We are again back to the debacle of euthanasia vs. keeping  a brain dead patient alive on a life support machine.

If things are meant to be, they will be.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

a little less conversation a little more action please

51679641_130b585ded

Isn’t your post about the society a complaint itself?

OWNED.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Enter a post title, do i have to always do so?

I always have a propensity to think a lot about matters in my life. This is also true of the mildest thing that crossed my path and happen to intrigue my interest. Some people have said that i worry too much about nothing. Sometimes i do get overwhelmed with pessimistic thoughts weighing down on my consciousness, bearly giving me space to breathe. For those times, i think their opinions have an element of truth in them. But the real truth is that i would like to think that i am a thinker rather than a worrier.

Much worry and ado for nothing? No, i think not. Here is a piece of thinking that i did last night.

Many times in our lives, we mull and agonise over the big decisions in our lives. We perceive them as being major, purportedly because of their intrinsic connectedness to the central arrangements in our lives. And society would have us think that it is normal too. How many of us have not thought that changing a job, getting married or buying a house constitutes a major decision? Indeed we all do.

In the midst of focusing our energies on those major decisions, we conveniently forget about those minor decisions. We invoke simple decision making routines for such minor decisions, often monotonously giving little or not thought at all to such choices. Much like you simply leap across when you encounter a water puddle in your path in your stroll. It is good and bad in a way, i am inclined to think.

The good is that you don’t give too much fuss in a life that is already full of buzz. Don’t we already feel chocked some times with everyone and everything around baying for a piece of ourselves? Just gotta do what’s gonna be done.

Yet my thinker alter ego urges me to think otherwise. As much as the little decisions count for naught in terms of significance alone, taken altogether, it would be foolhardy to dismiss all of them as being naught.  And this pessimistic sentiment was not borne out of baseless paranoia. Recall the “butterfly effect”. The butterfly effect is a metaphor to describe the sensitivity of initial conditions to changes. I believe that our lives, everyone of us included, are complicated. Taken one life at a time, i consider it to be a highly complex system, both dynamic and fluid with multiple inputs and multiple outputs (MIMO). The inputs include not only the decision inputs that we exercise out but also the decisions by other individuals which have a partial bearing on the decisions we make. And, some decisions have a resonance cascade effect, leading onto effects which influence the making of certain decisions and so on and so forth.

The simplest summary of such a system is that life is a consequential and reactionary system constituted by a lineage of decisions, big and small. One change in any one “link” in this “chain” of decisions have a tremendous effect on the causal relationship of the decisions as a whole on the overall effects. That is, the overall profile and character of the variables have changed thus should the effects as according to the butterfly effect.

What is the moral of the story?

As much as we agonise over the major or big decisions in our lives, remember that it is actually the accumulation of the decisions big and small that matters more. it is probably a romantic notion to think that one big decision can have that devastating effect on your life. Remember that it wasn’t THAT decision that set the life changing course in motion. It ALREADY was in motion courtesy of some previous decisions in collective.

Friday, April 23, 2010

EPIC

Post

Facebook post of the decade.

EPIC

PS. my toes are laughing

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

WRT54G

A few days ago Urong commented that my blog is becoming hardwarezone-risque. Meaning the bulk of my writing is now highly devoted to geeky stuff like DIY IT matters.

Noooooooooooooo! I am a guy with a healthy lifestyle with diverse interests. Alright alright, i will blog more about OTHER stuff k.

But before that people, do you think i should upgrade the stock RP-TNC 5dBi antennae of my WRT54G router to a high gain 16dBi Yagi antenna?

If it goes true, next time i might be possible for me to receive signal from Northpoint. HAHAHA joking i don’t think that is possible.

Yagi Antenna

MSI Wind (Part 2)

So i umm ordered a pair of internal speakers from this guy called Babis who resided in Greece. I paid him promptly using Paypal and he shipped the speakers to me as per usual routine.

I checked the tracking number for a good many days and just now yes literally like 1/2 hour ago, the postman came and i signed the package.

Well well well, to think that amid the gloom and doom of the final exams looming around the corner, there is a moment of respite. :D

IMG_0460

Oh btw, if you would like some Greek stamps let me know, i would let you have them. :)

 IMG_0461

This is the actual size of the speakers. I have placed a 20 cent coin just to illustrate how diminutive in size it is.

IMG_0462

In order to access the PCB connector for the speakers, i have to first physically remove the mini PCI-E WIFI card. I gingerly nudge the first coaxial cable out of its socket in order to expose the screw securing the WIFI card to the motherboard.

IMG_0463

With the WIFI card out of the way, i can see clearly the PCB connector. it is the first one vertically bottom wise. It was abit tricky getting the old PCB connector out since there is virtually little or not grab holds on the male connector. In the end, i cracked it –.- but anyway i got it out of the female socket and inserted the new PCB connector into the female socket.

IMG_0464

As a final wrap up, i used some flexi tape to wrap around the individual tweeters so that they fit snugly into the customised enclosures. If you have been following my posts, you will recall that these enclosures are nothing more than high density polyethylene bottle caps which i have liberally sawn to fit them into the atrociously tight compartment in the Wind’s interior.

I filmed the enhanced Wind belting out MJ’s Bilie Jeans. I can feel that the bass and treble has improved and loudness is definitely there. However the audio recording of this video might not have done proper justice to the newly enhanced audio quality.

Thanks for reading :)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

MRT like in 20 years?

From the diagram, you can observe many newer iterations of LRT lines. Sheesh and i thought that Punggol and Choa Chu Kang, the testbed for LRT proved that it was a failure.

 LRT

It is slower than a bus and i don’t understand what is the rationale of having rail when the bugger is essentially propelled along by tires. YES this fella has got tires and they basically roll underneath the carriage on the narrow concrete pavement of the rail. Lacking even a basic leaf spring suspension, the LRT carriage bounces like a banshee on the soft rubber tires. And tell me people, can that flax tube contain enough people to allow it to be considered as public transport? It would probably have sufficed as wacko jacko’s personal rail in his infamous Neverland but in burgeoning Singapore? Sorry it doesn’t make the cut.