Last physics lab

Today marks the end of week 11, so it won't be far. Yesterday, I've attended the last Physics Laboratory Session, perhaps of my life, if nothing goes wrong, since I only need 1 Physics module for my major. The experiment was about Radioactivity, quite easy to do, just need to put the radioactive material on something, don't know what it's called, then reset the counter and start the stopwatch. It's the first and last time I come into contact with something that actually have the radioactive symbol on it.

Help Them!!
10 ppl are going to be executed tomorrow. The executor gives them another chance at living by playing the game "Black or White" with them.

He will arrange them in a line, place a hat (either white or black) on each of their head so that he can see the hats of the people in front but cannot see his own hat and those behind him. Each person supposed to guess the color of the hat he is wearing. Executor will start asking from the last guy (person who sees everyone in front of him). If he's wrong, he will be shot immediately. All the people in front will know the response of those who have answered

Help them by devising a way to maximise the number of people who will live.

Fortune cookies are tasty but are they accurate?

The result for programming methodology mid term test is finally out. It's the one with 4 programming questions and have to finish it within 1.75hr. It was tough, struggling through the 1.75hr to write out 4 programs on paper without testing it. And for a noob programmer like myself, the time given was certainly not enough to finish all the questions. Here's the raw score:




Nothing glorious, scoring 51 from a possible 100. Somehow, i managed a passing grade. Hmm, but the average for the test was 41. Thus from the result, it predicted that I'll get a B+(it's a low B+, I just know it somehow) as overall score. A pretty good grade for a score of 51. But really, should I be happy with this score? Probably if i start gloating at others' mishap in this test, I may end up getting a lousier grade myself, and I really cannot afford that as none of this semester's module is easy to me.

How to divide the booty?

There are 5 rational pirates Kaiak, B, C, D, and E. They found 100 Pieces of Eights(pirate currency) and must decide how to divy the booty. The most senior of them will propose a division, and obviously, Kaiak, as the captain will have the honour to do that. The rest of the crew will have to vote for or against the division. If the number of votes for is more than or equal to at least the number of votes against -1, the division is finalised. However, if the number of votes for is less than the number of votes against -1 (reason is the proposed division is a vote itself, cast by the proposer, and the proposer has the final say in case of a tie), the proposer(Kaiak) of the division will be thrown overboard to feed the sharks, and the next senior B, will propose another division.

Dilemmas here:

1. Proposer wants to maximise his gain while not wanting to swim with the sharks
2. The rest of the crew want more people to be thrown to the sharks to get a bigger share

So how should the proposer propose?

Excitement of Last Minute

For those who are consistent in their work, they will never have a chance of enjoying the excitement that last minute work brings. Obviously, you know who I'm talking about, and he always finish all his tutorial for the following Monday to Thursday in the weekend, leaving the weekdays for the Friday tutorial.

Last weekend till today was by far the most exciting period. The 2 (usually 1) assignments were due on Monday and 1 today, but throughout the weekend, I had no idea how to do them. MIPS assembly language programming, Physics Tutorial, and JAVA programming, and especially MIPS, even after cursing everything related to that, I still couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do.

So the fateful sunday came, and off i go to enjoy the weekend without accomplishing anything. Back at home at around 9 on sunday, I started a short discussion with a coursemate, and finally, found the way to start the MIPS program, when i get stucked, I'll switch over to Physics since both were due on Monday. At the end of the day, both assignments were not finished.

With unfinished assignments and unforseen reason, I skipped the first 3 lectures of the day.This makes my first lesson to be the MIPS lab. I managed to finish my Physics tutorial with some help and handed in by 3 before going for the lab. With more help from the TA, I finally managed to get the correct program out at the expense of 2 additional hour to the normal 1 hour slot for the lab.

That's 2 down, 1 to go. I managed to reach home at around 10pm after having dinner out at BT Timah. After settling down at my PC, it's already 1030pm. That will leave me 3.5hr before sleep. Very obvious not enough to finish the program, since some pro guy said in the forum that he took 5hrs meaning i'll take 10hrs. And knowing the question was some variation of the most difficult question in the term test, it's really GG!!

The programming continued in school after having lunch with chubbs. Time was 1145am, 4.25hr before the deadline. Of the 4.25hr, i only worked for 3.75hrs, meaning a total of 7.75hr. Got a decent program out which should pass some test cases but having managed to get all the cases. give me another 2.25hrs!! Too bad, can't ask for extension as the program is submitted online.

Man.. Isn't that exciting!? If it's not, I wouldn't have written so many things. Go try it out yourself.

chill out day

The last sunday of every month, Mensa Singapore will have a session which they call chill and chat where members can go and play games and drinks for free. Being a member for about 4 months, today is the first time going there. So off we went to Settlers' Cafe in Clarke Quay.

Have asked most of the platoon people who are still in Singapore, but mostly are too busy with school work or some other reasons. In the end only 5 people went - me(already CMI in school work), Kai(too pro, so can go out play), Kyuu(already holidaying), Miz and HH(who's already out for the day, might as well stay out longer).

Reached there at around 250pm and we started off with the game called Ticket to Ride. The host got each of us a cup of peach tea and sort of showed us how the game is played and it was actually quite an easy game. Either draw cards, or place trains. The beyond godlike won this game easily, connecting all over the map(so pro).

The 2nd game(GIZA) was about building pyramid. Each player has a board and you can place the tiles on anyone's board during your turn, or exchange your tiles. After playing 3 games of this, the i only managed to win 1, the pro one won 1, and 1 game was tied between 3 players.

Miz joined the 3rd game we played was a card game - "HAVOC". The name was introduced to us by another one of the hosts, and lol, for the first 2 days in the game, i didnt know what was happening(too noob). In the end, it turned out to be something like Big 2 with a twist, and was played with numbers from 0-15, and 6 colours of each number. We were supposed to shout "HAVOC!!" before going into battle, but no one did.

Leaving the place at 6, we had a headache of where to have dinner. Settled for a bak kut teh dinner along the junction of mohamed sultan road and river valley road. DYRSM was supposed to meet us for dinner, but was late as usual, and what worse was he went to Holland V to find us. lol.. Miscomm. And he took taxi from Holland V to find us. Expensive dinner at a hawker center.

Right now at this very moment, I'm still having a headache over the things i have to submit tomorrow. Wanted to finish them up before going for the chilling session, but i'm totally lost and dont know where to start from, sigh. Anyway, Pro guy suggests going for the session again next month. He is the person to contact if you want to go, not me, cause he is the organiser.

8 glasses of water

Everyone knows that to maintain a healthy lifestyle, one has to drink 8 glasses of water daily. How you done it today?

-2 glasses of coffee
-1 packet of soya bean milk approximately 1.5 glass
-1 glass of coka cola
-1 bowl of soup approximately 1 glass
-1 bottle + a few gulps more of plain water approximately 2.5 glasses

2+1.5+1+1+2.5 = 8

Yes, I am healthy!! Are you?

Time Extension

IPPT scheduled 2 days ago have been postponed INDEFINATELY!! lol, mostly because of the poor fitness level, need to get back in shape before going. Alot of money is at stake here, so i won't want to take unnecessary risk. At least must get 200 bucks.

Recent runs haven't been the same.. The one i had 2 weeks ago, turned out to be shorter than usual, as i made a detour to the supermarket to buy some grocery. The other one yesterday was interrupted by heavy rain, and the end, was totally drenched and still didn't complete the run. That's why the $200 is so difficult to earn.

Anyway, most of the mid term results are back, and wow, really cmi.. Now i'm super sad cause of them. Sigh, how can i ever get good grade if i keep doing this bad? Whatever, just hang in there cause only 4 more weeks of instructional weeks to go.

Countdown Timer to end of exams: 49 days (4th MAY)

Bankrupt, Penniless, Poor, Pork

The spending spree continues today as I bought another textbook which I may not even have the time to read, but had to buy for the seek of buying. The money spent tally hit a peek when i bought a new handphone for $168 after a discount of $70, bringing the value to be $300 spent in 3 days..

Now the words that best describe me are the few words in this title. What better ways are there to welcome the year of the Pig, than to be described as pork. Gotta start saving up again, for the textbooks next sem.

Journey to the Central

The Journey to the Central starts off bright and early in the morning. The purpose of this journey is to attain the Holy ThumbDrive from the Central region at Suntec Building. Starting off from my home, I headed southward to a place called BB. I met up with my first companion, Kyuu, before we continue on the Journey.

Meanwhile, my second companion, Ah Bee, sent me a message telling me to meet him at the bus stop outside WM. On my way to the bus stop, Kyuu and I met with the first trial. We seemed to have make a wrong turn somehow, and had to make a detour to the destination bus stop.

Ah Bee drove Joel's (the third companion) car and came to pick us up. That's the start of the second trial - taking a ride on a vehicle controlled by Ah Bee. This is only the second time that he had driven since he passed last August. It's a surprise his friend actually let him drive. When we were at Bukit Timah area, a car driven by a Tai Tai, suddenly cut into our lane, but luckily, our driver was quick to turn away from the danger. It was still lucky that no car was coming from our right, else surely buang.. The funny thing is the Tai Tai has the cheek to horn us and Ah Bee actually waved back signalling sorry.. Really make the three of us laugh until cannot stop.

We parked the car at Bugis, and after having our lunch at KFC, we took a bus to our final destination, and the holy ThumbDrive was attained. 2 GB, 38 bucks, and apart from that, gotten a set of ear phone at 15bucks.

Mid-term officially over

Finally, the mid term tests are all over. Here are the verdicts for these tests?

History - first of the mid term test, it's so difficult, i almost couldn't write anything. Getting back the paper tomorrow, just hope my tutor is lenient.

Maths - 12 mcqs, and I am only confirmed of answers to around 4 or 5 of them.. The rest will have to depend on my luck on that day.

Programming - The most difficult programming test yet. Given only 1hr 45min, have to write the code for 4 programs that will come out as programming assignments in the next few weeks. According to the lecturer, each programming assignment should take about 2 hr, so the test should have been 8 hours. Needless to say, i cannot finish the paper.

Computer Organisation - 20 mcqs + 1 bonus mcq, 3 short answer. The most interesting test so far. Questions include :
In an anology, which part of the human body is the processor in a computer often associated with?
eye, heart, brain, hand, mouth? (Who don't knows)
The prestigious Turing Award, considered to be the computing world's equivalent to the Nobel Prize, is named after which prominent computer scientist?
Tim Turing, John Turing, Blaise Turing, Aiken Turing, Alan Turing? (Who knows)

The bonus mcq was - which of these is true?
There are 3 online assessments on IVLE for part 1 of the module
The URL of the module website is http://www.nus.edu.sg/~cs1104?
Your CS1104 exam paper is on 24th April 2007?
Lap #4 is on the use of parallel adder?
None?
Frankly, I only know that first is true and second is false, that's how i get the correct answer.

Physics - The last midterm test, taken today. Only 10 mcqs, and I'm only confident of 4 of the answers. The interesting part is that credit will be given to workings, mind you, this is an mcq test. They better give me my marks if i tekam correct..

Phew, I'm already smelling the summer vacation. Oh, there's still the exams and the ICT.. Nevermind them, cause I still have 3 tutorials to prepare for now.

Do you know how to age?

Found this article on one of my course website, this title particularly appealed to me for a good reason. However, it wasn't really about how to age physically. The first line wrote

"You grow older only when you stop seeing the potential in life"

I feel this is quite true as I am experiencing some form of mental aging at the moment as I've not realised my own potential, especially academically. Think the problem lies in the many distractors at my workstation at home, but I still refused to let go of them. This is so troubling. I will have to find some other ways to effectively implement my revisions, if not very soon, I'll become an old man mentally.

On the contrary, my physical outlook doesn't suggest I have aged much since I was secondary school(Kindergarten and Primary School friends might think otherwise). Many strangers whom I met will mistake me for a secondary school boy (Should take this as an insult -- R & J Act1 scene5, Lord Capulet called Tybalt a boy, and Tybalt took it as an insult, should be correct, but verify yourself if you are interested), but it is sometimes a good thing that people think that way. Anyway I'm already numbed and it don't really matter to me whether people mistake me for a secondary school kid. Just hope that it won't be so ridiculous as one of my aunt suggested that the TP may stop me on the road and ask me for my license cause he doubt I was at legal age to drive.

Link 1- Do you know how to age?
Link 2- Exam Preparation

hatoreanhawk

Many had asked me what the meaning of hatoreanhawk. What exactly is this?

History of the word:
This was a nickname that i created randomly during my secondary school days. The first syllabus of the word, hat, actually was supposed to be hat-trick hero - soccer term for scoring 3 goals in a match. I was a soccer and basketball craze during secondary school, playing either 1 of them everyday. Partly because of the comics and anime showing at that time - Captain Tsubasa, and Slam Dunk. I chose hat and added "orean" meaning people of hat tricks, like Singaporean - people of Singapore.

The last syllabus, hawk was basically added to make the word rhyme, like my name. Hawk also have keen eyesight for preys, fit perfectly for hat trick hero with keen eyesight for goal, so it was the perfect word to add.

Meaning of the word:
Notice hatoreanhawk contains 2 x "ha", concatenate them and we get "haha", making this synonym of happiness. You always laugh with "haha" when you are happy right?


P.S. This word is not recognised and cannot be found in any dictionary, so do not use it in your formal writings that will be graded or you will not be happy with the score. (contradicting the true meaning of the word)