Siu Hang’s blog.. again?

On 4th June 1989, what started as peaceful sit-in crying for democracy in China at the Tiananmen Square by students ended as a bloody massacre when the People’s Liberation Army rolled in. The estimated toll was 3000.Some years later, a particular Mr Lee from Singapore said that the Chinese government did the right thing.When you use it to gain power, you call it a revolution; When others use it to threaten your power, you call it a revolt.

My research is getting more “interesting”.Now they want me to invent a linear motor that has 2 degrees of freedom.Have to play with Lorentz’s Law. Any suggestion?Would it be easier to re-invent the wheel?

Lorenz’s Law of Mechanical RepairAfter your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.Anthony’s Law of the Workshop:Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.Kovac’s Conundrum:When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged tone.Cannon’s Karmic Law:If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.O’brien’s Variation Law:If you change queues, the one you have left will start to move faster than the one you are in now.

Bell’s Theorem:When the body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.Ruby’s Principle Of Close Encounters:The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.Willoughby’s Law:When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, it will.Zadra’s Law Of Biomechanics:The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.Breda’s Rule:At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.Owen’s Law:As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold

Just finished watching a famous German movie Das Boot.It’s about a German U-boat U-96 near the end of World War 2. Its task was to patrol the North Atlantic and hunt down Allied convoys sailing to Britain. (Battle of North Atlantic) It somehow feels like playing Silent Hunter 3 on my computer, just that in the computer game I didn’t set fuel limit and probably got sunk many times.There are a lot of meanings behind the movie. For example the Captain of U-96 seemed to be anti-Nazi. (or even anti-government) But as a good soldier, he carried out his missions as ordered, even taking on the suicidal mission to Gibraltar which was the nest of British naval power in the Mediterranean. The Chief Engineer was someone to watch too, although he had no news of his wife back in Germany, with professionalism he performed miracles in repairing the sunk U-96 at Gibraltar. The biggest irony of it all, U-96 made it back to home port and to be sunk right at the moment by enemy air raid. Sigh, really sad movie that still got me emotional.

People pay so much attention in work safety, they neglect home safety.Yesterday I was hanging my wok when it landed on my toe. Imagine the solid metal falling sidewards under acceleration of 9.81 m/s² and landing on the small area of my big toe, missing the nail by a few microns… It bled under the skin. Eek.Next time must wear safety shoes in the kitchen.

Oooo I think I read wrongly, should be ABE and not APE!Anyway, yeah about the recent article in the Straits Times about this father complaining that his kid of A,B,E (fine, plus a C for General Paper if he likes it) can’t get into local universities. Then he goes on to talk about what kinship and citizenship that sort…. so does that mean that if he is a Singapore citizen, everytime he queues up for 4D or TOTO he is going to win money?As someone who managed to squeeze into a local university and a good degree programme, I must say our cruel education system is not as simple as queueing up for char kway teow or lottery. You think you are good, but there are better ones out there. Check and balance are essential to maintain the quality of grads here. Just look at Hong Kong, slightly bigger than little red dot and they have like 7 government-funded universities and grads are like everywhere on the street.I think I know how he feels. I’ve seen my brother broke down when he couldn’t get into local universities the first time round. But he came back the second round and now he’s an engineer whom I respect.

At my workplace I think I’m the spoil-market of all the interns: I report to work at 8:30am and leave at 6pm. Some interns come at 9:30am and leave at 5pm. -_-” (btw the contract says 8:30 to 6)Remember the shh-shh guy? Thursday was holiday right? So on Wednesday he started shh-shhing and humping the back of my chair in office and suggested we go off at 5:30pm. I ignored him and continued working on my SolidWorks. So when it was almost 6pm I asked him if he wanted to go off, then he started grumbling say what he was waiting for me and stuff. The annoying thing he said was “I dunno what were you doing lor, drag the thing move here move there” (he was referring to me working on SolidWorks) So I turned on my sarcasm mode and replied “if you know what I was doing, then they wouldn’t need me here liao lor.”I mean if he wanted to go off early he could have just gone early by himself right? Want to “break law” also don’t dare to “break” alone…

Other than doing pole-dance, some commuters really can do other amusing things in the MRT.Some passengers just like to spread their legs wide wide while sitting. Are they giving birth or are they following what’s shown in sex education clips? And those who spread their legs are usually males. Do males need to spread legs?Others are better still, they can stick their legs to over half the width of the train. There was once I saw this man sticking his legs to in between the feet of a standing passenger. (didn’t check if he had installed a camera on his shoes) And of course the other reason for slouching is purely mathematical…Then some just like to cross their legs while others can spread open their newspaper (not legs this time) to in front of the passenger beside him/her. So cramped already still want to act seh. And you know what’s the most ridiculous thing? Someone’s fat butt/thigh crossed the boundary and crushed my MP3 player’s screen.Not only do people ride train, I’ve seen people riding each other while riding the train. Once I saw a guy really onto the girl at the 2-seater, another time was a girl on a guy… eek and those were during peak hours!Now we know there are many positions available at SMRT Corporation Ltd.

There’s this intern in my office, everytime he wants to ask me to go coffee break with him, he would try to attract my attention by making that “shh-shh” sound. I ignore him everytime.You know it’s like calling out to dogs. Am I supposed to feel insulted? No, cos I refuse to acknowledge him. Want to ask someone to slack with you, just ask properly lah. There was once he made that “shh-shh” sound and another engineer thought he was calling him, after that few seconds of embarrassment the guy resumed to shh-ing again.Not only that, he likes to stand behind me and look at my email screen, then I would just alt-tab to the boring solidworks screen (he’s from NUS EE3, knows nuts about solid modelling). I’m sorry, no kinky mails in my inbox. Respecting others is to respect yourself.

For those who are so eager to know my exam result, it’s here. Or you want the university administration to send my result to your home address?GEK1520 Understanding the Universe BMA3501 Mathematical Methods in Engineering B-ME2101 Fundamentals Of Mechanical Design B+ME2114 Mechanics Of Materials II B-ME2135 Fluid Mechanics II B-ME2142 Feedback Control Systems CCAP: 3.4If you feel that my heroic self-sacrificial act of staying at the bottom has raise your grades up, you can always sing “you raise me up” in front of me.Okay lah, it’s not fantastic result, the CAP has taken a little dip, but for someone who was expecting some failures, it’s a heavy load lifted. Actually I deserve worse. Expected myself to have done badly because this semester I have been blogging like I never blogged before (if you are so free you can count my number of posts), and at the forum side I was promoted… so now I’m like moderating 9 boards (although there are more than 9 moderators under me, but…).Conservation of energy: you gain some, you lose some. It’s how you make the gain useful.