Gear up for Earth Hour 2010!

Who's up for Earth Hour? I am. I gladly comply with it. Not only I'll turn off my lights, I'll go without any electrical appliance as much as I can for an hour. Just assume there's a blackout. Besides it's not like our utility is that reliable after all, with intermittent uncompensated blackouts.

I was in Melbourne for Earth Hour 2008 and Milan for Earth Hour 2009, the support which it garnered from the public was just encouraging. They even have a countdown to Earth Hour in a public venue, being celebrated on a scale as large as your New Year's Day countdown. Take a look at some of the cities across the globe during Earth Hour.

This year's Earth Hour together with @yiewdean, @Ai_Ting, @PhuongNguyenNT and @jiaminjiamin, we'll all be running the Energizer Night Race. I couldn't think of any better way to experience Earth Hour than to just run with a headlight running on minimal power.

Murphy's Kitchen Law

Kitchen cause two of these events unfolded in the kitchen, only 15minutes apart.

I wanted to keep this bottle cause I find it peculiar and I've not seen it in the market before:

According to my cousin there isn't Starbucks in India, and this is all they have, retailed in their supermarkets. She found it retailing in a supermarket in Ampang when she returned. It was pretty OK, with the aroma still contained but it's a tad too sweet for me so I prefer a cuppa freshly brewed instead of prepack.

So just being one of my bad habit I thought of keeping the bottle, which I knowingly, cause I was too lazy to remove it from the rack where the bottle stood after washed, knocked if off, shattered it while trying to reach for something further in the rack. So much for keeping it when I only made a mess to clean. My cousin reproached by asking why was I so careless, I blamed it on the cluttered rack.

In resignation I then went on to chomp down some biscuits to quell my hunger while watching TV. For no apparent reason I lost grip of the bottle of cookies and it crashed to the floor. Another mess to clean and my cookies are gone! My cousin then chimed in: Now there's nothing in your way to cause that crash unlike that cluttered rack.

The hunger and thirst from my run only exacerbated my temper. At least my saving grace was a perfect excuse to not do the dishes for the night lest I break more stuff, and turns out it was my dad who broke the ear of a mug. LOL.

My Two Lost Pennies on The Lost Symbol

As expected, Dan Brown has a flair for delivering a twist in his writings, though this time I think has been toned down. The inclusion of certain technology such as Noetic Science and the breathable oxygen liquid were pretty intriguing, while technology used in the CIA was rather fascinating, assuming they are facts and not fiction.

The Dan Brown effect is still pretty good in this novel of his, not failing to keep readers on tenterhooks, well at least for most of the part. I have to admit at some point it feels as if Brown was rambling on, especially in the final 60 pages of the book. That I think was cause of a fleeting climax, from the way the villain was exterminated to the way he ties up the loose ends. I always have this tendency to compare it to Angel's & Demons which was a brilliant masterpiece. The last 60 pages was a bit dreadful to finish, especially when I was in a rush to finish the book prior going to bed and wasn't interested in a plain nonchalant discussion between Langdon and Peter in the absence of any threat or villain just to tie up those loose ends.

Nonetheless, it's still a good read and despite knowing how the movies are always a let down, I would still love to watch it to verify my imagination. Dan Brown in my opinion is still an exceptional author in his own league.

On a scale of 5, I'll give Lost Symbol a 4/5, BUT on a DAN BROWN scale, I'll give it a 3.5/5.

Remission

After a week of toiling, I'm going into remission. Sounds misleading with that austere tone right? I'm supposed to be happy that I finally alleviate myself of this huge load called the Final Year Project/Thesis. I'm just too tired to respond gleefully after the past nights of burning the midnight oil.

All I'm thinking of now, is to reward myself with a well deserved meal despite skipping swimming today after a long session with my supervisor. This is really letting my hair down (though I have none to be let) due to it's non conformity with my exercise-food intake ratio.

Garrgh. I'm supposed to be jovial rather than austere. Entertainer for hire, anyone? And ANY form of entertainment.

Trust Your Gut Instinct

Industrial Automation and Control Systems lab is 9am to 11am today, but it was de facto 9am to 12.15pm, lunch break then 1.30pm to 3.30pm. The staggering long hours? Here's why.

This was the given connection diagram for a closed loop control system:

My first time in 3.5 years of study, I'm seeing a T circuit. Cool. So how to connect physically? I interpreted it as such:

"Hmm, I'm not too sure myself, but do this:" was the response of the teaching assistant

Then I replied: "Huh? Doesn't this means that the Controller, Reader and the Resistance unit are all in parallel, like this:"

Teaching assistant: "Not too sure, just connect the T circuit first, then jump the terminals to the Resistance unit."

Hooked everything up, assuming that the black box Resistance unit has some special connection hidden. Double, triple, quadruple checked, swapped terminals, still not functioning. Fiddled, meddled with the Controller not working still. Swapped controller unit, futile. This experiment seemed forlorn we almost relented.

Just when all hope was gone, the TA showed us a circuit diagram from his manual, or his previous lab report saying the connection should be like this. We then realized something was not right. The resistor was blardy in series with the power supply and temperature transmitter while in parallel with the Controller and Reader, which was this:

This is an epitome of how something simple turned complex. Next time, I shall learn to trust my instinct and bother to try it out instead of taking others' words for granted.