Newsweek Epic Fail

someone made a small editing error in this article on newsweek


middle paragraph, first line, near the right side. i'll zoom in a little for you...

EPIC FAIL!! Pictures taken from http://www.newsweek.com/id/170965

oh yeah, and half my exams are over today. woo!

*drool*

it is extremely rare that i see a product that gives me heart palpitations.

actually, this is the only time i ever recall it happening.
http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/rule-brittania#/uk/videos-by-category?VideoCategory=Challenges&Page=9

60's era Jaguar Series 1, but with modernised insides. 50K UK Sterling before modding, and notwithstanding Singapore's atrocious taxes.

*drool*

Hello Moto....

She loves me
She loves my eyes
She loves me
She loves my thighs
She loves me
She loves my lips
She loves me
She loves my hips

(he hasn't shaved in awhile either!)

if attacked by afore-mentioned nuts...

some time ago i concluded that the best way to avoid a speeding car coming straight at you is to jump straight upwards and tuck your legs in.

this is assuming it's coming really fast at you, and you've only got about a quarter of a second to react. going left or right is a bad idea, because the car is probably going left or right too, so you've got a 50% chance of getting hit anyway.

besides, it takes longer to dive off to one side, because the act of diving leaves your legs in the way of the onrushing vehicle. conversely, jumping straight up and tucking your legs in takes half the time. you'll get hit by the sloped windshield instead of the flat bumper, and will hopefully end up rolling over the roof instead of getting flung through the air.

and if you're feeling particularly kung-fuey, you can try kicking off the hood of the car as it reaches you, executing a forward flip mid-air as the car barrels underneath, and landing gracefully on the ground as the car morphs into a flaming fireball behind you. signing your hollywood contract should take place within a day or two.


i only mention this now, because it seems that Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear implied something very similar when describing the latest lamborghini on Top Gear Season 12 Episode 1. i love it when my ideas get independent corroboration. :)

remembering the driving

someone has finally started driving lessons.

i remember when i finally started driving lessons. it was one of the biggest challenges i had ever faced, in terms of personal struggle. i was scared of driving. my naturally cautious nature reeled at the idea of putting my life in the hand of random road users - my experience of a car accident that was not my dad's fault in any way merely amplified that. the logic was simple: there are nuts on the road, and there's not much you can do about it.

besides, i have remarkably little faith in my hand-eye coordination.

i literally quaked with fear everytime i walked that covered passageway from the train station to the driving centre. that path has been hallowed with much prayer. my driving instructor was quite amused at the way my knees shook. it's quite difficult to maintain half-clutch when your knee is shuddering.

on April 9th this year, by the grace of God, and also by the skin of my teeth, i passed my driving test. an exact borderline passing mark, and my tester conveniently ignored an "automatic failure" infringement. the date is seared into memory.
i want to be able to point out your faults knowing that you're strong enough to take it
i still don't like driving. but it's ok now.

study plan

ok, study plan.

today till next monday - chiong semiconductor physics, and glance at google earth module along the way. from next tuesday till following wednesday, chiong solid state physics, and glance at religion module along the way.

27th Thu 9.00am: Intro to World Religions
27th Thu 1.00pm: Solid State Physics
29th Sat 9.00am: Semiconductor Processing
1st Mon 9.00am: Remote Sensing for Earth Observation

i remember that the verse which i was given said, "Take heart, and be strong."

successfully solved rubik's cube twice today. whoo! Google earth module exam takes place in a computer lab - we're apparently allowed to bring in one CD-ROM full of stuff.

not-blind faith

the most blatantly supernatural thing that i have ever personally experienced is having two separate scripture references come to me in a dream. they were not passages i was familiar with, and they both had one particular phrase repeated word-for-word which was relevant to an issue i was facing at the time. this was last december.

thus i know that the God i believe in is real, alive and active, although i may not see it at this particular moment.


what Jesus said was, "even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles." miracles are not crucial to faith, but they help.

pedometer

my sisters bought my dad a pedometer some days ago. its a cute little device that you're supposed to put in your pocket, and it counts how many steps you've taken with it in your pocket.

it's a cool concept, except that i managed to 'walk' a few hundred steps for my dad by bouncing it on my knee. plus, after he dropped it a few times, it seems prone to going walking all by itself.

as i was bouncing it on my knee, i could feel a weighted spring inside oscillating, so i guess that's how it works. but the question that popped into my mind as i fiddled around with the device it this: is someone who loves to walk alot called a pedophile? :D

side note: IIRC, the Brits spell it with a letter 'a' near the front. Americans can't spell. :)

on an utterly unrelated note, this is something else that was bouncing around my head this morning.

Q: Give one example of a cardinal sin.

A: Pooping in the birdbath.

(in case you didn't get it, click here)

experimenting

this is what the blog looked like for a few minutes today. was experimenting with blogger. woo.

recovering from election fever.

i debated whether to spend time following the election news today, considering that i have one test and one lab report due tomorrow, and a presentation on monday.

i eventually decided that it was a historic moment not to be missed.

so i spent approximately 4 hours this morning refreshing various news websites, and a further one-and-a-half hours tonight reading post-mortems. (my fave article so far)

that's approximately 3 times as much time as i spent studying. :)

toast for breakfast

actually i had prata.

but then i found this online.

hahaha.

i wonder if i post bits of my essay on my blog, whether NUS' plagiarism detectors will pick it up. hmm...

"what? you mean i must go library?"

i have found my official worst project mate ever.

doing a research project together. i've been working mainly on this since middle of last week. urban development of Singapore over the last 50 years, using old photos superimposed onto Google Earth.


On the day that I asked everyone to have their first draft out, he hasn't written a word. When I leave lab early so i can actually get lunch before my next class, he exclaims, "What?!? then who can i ask if i dunno what to do??"

the day after the first draft was supposed to be out, he messages me. "Oi, I dunno wad to do for (sub-topic X which is half of his entire part)." I head over to LINC, type three words into the search function, then send him two links by MSN. He says, "You mean you got these books?" I tell him no, that he needs to go to the library. He says, "What?! you mean i must go library??"

research project... but doesn't see a need to go to the library. i'd like to take a moment here to quote from the project instructions.

Be warned that most information you can get by Googling is sketchy. You should also use the library, and read reference books.

despite the project scope being from the 1950s to the present, half his section is talking about the Raffles Town plan. Apparently he had done a project on that, so was eager to show off his knowledge.

he writes in Singlish. "Another conflict in the past was that Singapore was ethnically fractured, so no one is interested in funding a free (entrance) and open (to all races) park."

he writes with the finesse and sensitivity of a wrecking ball. "This has alarmed our neighboring countries as the boundary has to be redrawn, causing disputes, momentarily displaying our long history of not so good foreign relationship with our jealous, yet bigger neighbors." i got totally blasted by a teacher in P5 for doing something similar in an essay. apparently it's not nice to create international tension.

i later find out that of the two links i sent to him, he only used one. the other one was in closed stacks, and he didn't want to wait an hour for it.

he writes without citations. he doesn't seem to think they're important. "The reclaimed land has caused damage to our environment in more ways than we have expected. Habitat destruction is reported when land is drained during reclamation. Habitat destruction is the process when the natural habitat is not able to support the species that are living there; usually they are either displaced or destroyed in the process." This was the sum of his writing about the environmental effect of land reclamation. Chains of generic and sweeping statements, devoid of references or actual examples for that matter. This is AFTER he asked me for help, and I sent him a link to an NUS website about coral reefs.

so i basically rewrote his entire section. i've left about 150 words untouched, as a memorial.

on the day that the project is due, at 5pm, he asks me if i've sent him any updates. i ask him to check his email (i had just sent it out). he tells me that he's checked it this morning. i tell him to check his email!!