Reading exam unrelated articles :(

Few days ago, I started to read a lot of news on Bloomberg, The Star Malaysia News, BBC, and YouTube quite frequently during exam time. I wonder why? This phenomena had been happening to me since I first came to the UK and I believed that it only happened when my year exam approaching. I have the tendency to read exam-unrelated articles from the internet to keep myself motivated for revision. However, this is a bad bad habit because of my anxiety to know more about a particular issue, I will spend a lot of time researching about it when I should do more on my revision. I categorise this phenomena as wasting time.

For example, the current issue about the Apple using iPhone and iPad to track users’ location by storing a bunch of location history in a hidden file in the device. What are the implications of this issue on users in the future if retained? Apple claims that these data is used for improving user experience by having the user location tracked faster and more accurate. Well, my opinion is that the given excuses by Apple are not consistent. First Apple claimed that they didn’t realised the device is tracking and storing such massive amount of location history but they suddenly claimed that these data are for iPhone or iPad improvements in the future. This matter concerning user privacy will cost the company some legal issues if unresolved. Legal = lost of money (that is what I was told in Finance class).

Now, try to think of what can a user history do to the user if the device is being hacked and the data falls on the wrong hand. Firstly, the various locations you have visited will be identified. This indirectly predicts where you live, work, shop, eat and many other things. If you are poor, there is noting to lose, but if you are rich, you might not want to reveal your house address to the bad guys. On the other hands, this data can be positive in terms of tracking crimes around the globes. Well, not going into details on how to fight crimes.  

On another story that interest me is that Mr Trump the Billionaire who owns the “The Apprentice” demanded President Obama to prove that he possess US citizenship by pressuring Obama to release his birth certificate. Why on earth does he want to do that? Questions is what is the motive of Mr Trump’s act? Is there any hidden agenda behind Obama’s birth certificate. Well, one of the comments he gave was “I managed to do something no one dare to do”. To be honest, I was quite impressed by his courage but what is the point?

Hush hush!!! enough of reading. Back to Fracture Mechanics and Thermodynamics…

Exam Stress: Revision Venues

As a student, when is your least favourite time? Well, I bet 99% of the student population will agree with me that it is the exam preparation. Well, not to say it is extremely stressful but managing stress is one issue, finding the right place to study is another issue. I soon realised this morning when I was using the toilet and found out that it was actually a pretty good venue to concentrate when you wanted to understand something difficult. Well instead of poo-ing, you study in it. This might sound ridiculous but let me compare the pros and cons of typical study venue students usually chose:

Venue	Pros	Cons
Library	Quiet Good lighting	Too many people = extra stress –> distraction
Garden or Park	Good lighting and fresh air –> Good for your brain but the weather is uncertain at times.	Too many hot boys OR girls walking around during Spring time –> distraction
Home (Your room)	Safe time = no need to walk to the college or library	You sit in front of a computer and start using Facebook or reading financial news
Home (Dining Hall)	Spacious –> Some people find it helpful in revision.	Distractions from housemates . If you have any..
Toilet	Good lighting No distraction Quiet and internet free (unless you bring in an iPhone and start Facebook or Angry Bird)	- Depends on your toilet cleanliness- might be smelly - People might want to use the toilet.

Based on the comparison made in the above table, it seems like Toilet is actually pretty strategic venue to study when you wish to concentrate. Anyway, why on earth am I comparing toilet with other venues? Sigh, Back to revision !!!

Great website for student

A little knowledge to share here. I went to the MIT Open Courseware website and accidentally clicked on one of the link that led me to the URL below

openstudy.com

Try it, you might find it useful as there are relevant topics being discussed by students around the world. Or you can just practice maths by helping the newbies :P (It is not like I am good at it :P)

-Okie Time to get back to revision- 

Update of the Day

I am Happy.

Why?

I am happy because I just came back from dancing with my Sawo in the Empress Ballroom of Winter Garden in Blackpool :).

... Happy ...

Lunch with housemates

Woke up in the morning (more like afternoon) of the first Christmas holiday weekend feeling very unproductive. Cooked some lunch and ate with my housemates. Presenting our lunch as shown in the picture. We are lazy people .

Lunch with housemates

Chinese Noodles cooked with chicken and mushrooms

Top View of my lunch.

Snowy day.

This morning I went to Brent Cross (somewhere in London Zone-3 North) for a volunteering work. It was supposed to be a fun job in giving free services in helping the shoppers to pump up their tires. But heavy snow hit London. It was quite disappointing to know that it affected my lovely volunteering activity on Saturday.

At the same time, I heard that many of my friends’ outbound flights from London were cancelled due to the severe snow storm. Looks like the weather isn’t favourable for any travels on Winters holiday. I hope my trip in January will not get such misfortune. PRAY HARD!!! And yup, the pictures shown in this post is the underground station in Brent Cross. Covered with snow.

Unstoppable

This movie was inspired by real incident happened in Pennsylvania where a runaway freight train. The real incident happened on the 15th May 2001 where an unmanned train, CSX 8888 portrayed as the AWVR777 (nicknamed Triple sevens) headed from Stanley Yards in the direction of Stanton at speed of about 71 miles per hour or equivalent to 114KM/h without an air brake. The freight train carrying about 45 cars, with only 22 loaded cars. Unfortunately, 8 of the cars contains hazardous material, molten phenol (reported for about 80 Gallon). In the movie, it was shown that the main focus of the mission to shop this train from passing Stanton. This is due to the extremely small radii curve rail track that might cause the freight to turned over and hit the fuel storage next to it.

So the most exciting part of the movie is when the train approach the curve at Stanton. It was shown in the movie that the engineer suggested to use the Dynamic Braking system using another locomotive to engage from the back of the unmanned train. Dynamic braking is a system of converting the traction motors to generators to produce voltage and current, which will then be dissipated as heat through the resistors in the braking grid.

Well for the rest of the story, watch it for yourself by the links down there.

CD1: http://www.zshare.net/video/8400145588701a78/

CD2: http://www.zshare.net/video/84001760c6b5f775/

Internship: End

Yesterday was my last day of internship with a consulting firm. Huh.. what a relief. I learned a lot from this internship. Nothing engineering though but I think it will came in handy in the future. Now is the time for me to start do some heavy duty shopping and packing my bag – my flight back to the UK is 2 day from now. Damn man… I want more holiday T.T.

Stupid Restaurant in Bayu Puteri Apartment, Petaling Jaya

Everything has been good today until dinner time. I was planning to go out to pack some food but it was raining. Well, I don't have a car only a motorbike. So I decided to eat at the restaurant (I wouldn't call it a restaurant - cause it is sell shitty food and charged people like mad ass) in the condominium (Bayu Puteri Apartment, Petaling Jaya) I am staying right now.  I entered the "restaurant" and it is basically quite empty (as I expected) and there are not much food around. So I asked for a plate of rice and chose a drumstick cooked with chilly and a Neslo drink (mixture of chocolate and coffee).

Expecting it to be at very low price, I was dumbfounded when he told me that it cost me RM 6.50. So I was quite shocked and asked about the price of a rice + a skinny chicken drumstick.. That guy give me a fierce look and said "rice + chicken is RM4 and the drink is RM2.50." I was like speechless man. This is ridiculous!! Really? I think this shop can just go to hell. Charging the customer with such price will only pissed the customer off (that's me). Now I understand why this restaurant is so empty. 

I think the owner of this "restaurant" doesn't have a brain in his or her head. Really man, if I were to run a restaurant, I will put some efforts into it. At least make your food better before you dare selling it. You readers might not get the idea unless I post up some pictures of this place. With the thousands of people living in this condominium, the business of this restaurant could explode like a big bang. Sigh, no point saying it to those shit head. I don't think I will be buying anything from that bloody "restaurant" again unless I have no other choice. 

-Angry and disgusted Customer-

Bad Day

Today is a bad bad day. During day time, I did something wrong and get scolded by my supervisor due to some mistakes I  did. I was asked to do a knowledge transfer to one of the client at the project site by giving verbal presentation and send the relevant file to the person via email. In the process of sending the file, I had to ensure two main persons in the CC list. Guess who, one of them must be my supervisor and another is the person's supervisor. So that's about the first part of my bad day.

The second part of the bad day begins right after I packed my chicken rice. I nearly got knocked by a car trying to come out from a parking lot when there were ants lot of cars moving right behind the car - of course that included my poor motorbike. I would blame the stupid driver instead of the car. The butt of the car just zoom out, nearly knocked me down. I was lucky enough to speed up in  time to avoid the car ass. It was bad adrenaline rush. Really lucky in an unlucky day.

That's it. Bad day. Wonder why? A HA... Today is the Ghost Festival eve. May be that had something to do with all these unlucky events of the day.

God Bless Me!!