The Prof's way of getting an A the engineer's way

Today a Prof was sharing with us how to get an A, his way.
First u need to read the lecture notes which is obvious.
Second is to do all the tutorials... ok, fair enough.
Lastly is to read from 3 different textbooks for each topic gone through.

I guess most undergrads wouldn't have a problem fulfilling the first 2 requirements(if u can't i think u're in trouble), but the last one is a little hardcore man. 70% of the undergrads would probably read up on certain topics that are really complicated from one textbook. 20% would revise all topics using one textbook, sometimes two is that one wasn't clear enough. The last 10% would have already finish reading one textbook before semester began and used the other one during revision and the 3rd one during exam preparation.

Note: If u belong to that last 10% and u're from the small island nation of Singapore, pls contact us. Our country is proud of you and would like to confer on you the title Geek.

Odex

Anime fans and those who have been reading the newspapers would probably have heard about it. Odex are now suing people who download animes illegally. Presently this concerns Singnet and Starhub users after the lawsuit against Pacific Net to release the names of its users in such activities was turned down. Violators faces a $3-5k settlement fee plus a promise of sort not to do it again. Illegal downloaders here are finally going to face the music thus this has actually caused quite a ruckus among the anime community here.

The commotion started when the owner of Odex posted comments online saying he's busy suing people irking many people online. The anime community has also started to hit back against Odex posting their counter-arguments about Odex case on forums online and pooling $$ in an apparent bid for a legal showdown.

While I'm no downloader when it comes to anime, I rather watch it from stream sources like youtube, actions by Odex have really irked me. Firstly though Odex got permission from anime studios in Japan to raise its case, the $3-5k settlement fee is ridiculous if u consider the amount of money lost due to loss of sale. Even the most hardcore illegal downloader could hardly chalk up that amount. $3k would probably translate to at least 50 series worth of anime, that really a lot and most downloaders would surely fall short to that amount. Secondly, since Odex isn't the sole distributor, it doesn't make sense that the fee is paid to Odex, since the loss in sale also affected other distributors. Even if the money is eventually paid to anime studios, I seriously doubt all anime studios authorised Odex to claim settlement. So if someone downloads an anime series that do not originate from the studios authorizing Odex to claim settlement it isn't right that he/she pay settlement to Odex isn't it? Lastly anime fans who actually bought products from Odex claimed that its subbing(translation) are either lifted from fan-sub communities or of really poor quality in terms of content. To this Odex itself have admitted to its less than satisfactory QC, then Odex couldn't blame its loss of sale solely due to illegal downloads.

What anime fans really want is to follow the anime series as it is aired in Japan, which local distributors isn't able to provide since each series of DVD/VCD are put on sale after a significant number of episodes are aired. Thus fans turn to fan sub communities who taped the show from TV and subbed it within 1-2 days before posting them online for all to watch, free of course. Though i agree that these fan sub communities resulted in a loss of sale for anime studios but they no doubt also helped popularise these animes as well. All in all Odex is just too hard-handed on its part, though it may have won on copyright, it certainly lost on PR.

Autobots, transform and move out!

Archers! Fire!

Went for archery just now, after changing it from monday to tuesday then to thursday. First there was a short introduction on the equipment before a demonstration on how to actually shoot the arrow before we're off to our individual 'instructor' whose actually just someone on the archery team. So practice a few rounds since its about 4 to a bow and we still need to retrieve the arrows since they're not unlimited. And after that was the fun part, the prize shooting. We blew some balloons and placed them around the board with a coaster(yes, the kind u put ur cup on) on the bull's eye. 2 arrows at a time before rotating, we took turn to shoot the coaster and the balloons, hitting a balloon entitles u to take a prize from the goody bag which contains items like Ma-mee and other tidbits. Hitting the coaster which also means hitting the bull eye's entitles u to the coaster with a complimentary Nus Archery chop on it. Its not really easy to land the shot where u aim with all the wobbling and stuff, every now and then u can hear the sound of an arrow hitting the metal fence behind or the rim of the target board. The metal fence is literally filled with holes lah. But still as a marksman in the army, i managed to get that coaster in the last shot, how lucky. And my elbow got whacked by the bow string twice man, literally burst a few capillaries under the skin with those blood marks, definitely gonna get a few bruises tomorrow. But its really fun, and cheap too, $10 for the intro with refreshments included and i topped up another $12 to join the recreational sub-club to shoot once a week from week 3 -11. If not for mi tuition on thur, i would seriously consider joining the team, maybe next semester.


Anyway is it just me or are the roads getting narrower these days?

Extreme makeover home edition

A story about how an 8 year old girl battled death and became dauntless to it

I was watching today's episode which happens to be a 2 hr special(usually 1 hr). It turns out that this 8 year old girl wrote to the show hoping to renovate this hospital ward, not her house which is usually the case. Turns out that this little girl had cancer when she was little and stayed in this ward for quite a while. After 10 operations to remove her tumour and having other treatment, she thought she was cured only to find out that she had a relapse and now in the final stage of her cancer which means its incurable now. But this brave little girl continued to live happily and sought to help other cancer stricken children and her greatest wish is to make the children cancer ward more liveable so that patients would recover faster. She was determined to re-paint the ward even if the show didn't want to help so she made necklaces to sell in order to raise money to buy paint. The show decided to help her and made her the renovation team leader in charge of 50 animators from Walt Disney who would be helping her along with her 4 younger siblings and parents. The main design team however lied that they're renovating another house at another place but they actually decided to build her a new house since her parents spent much of their money on her treatment and her house has become rather rundown. With the help from the community and the company who helped build the British-French tunnel, they pulled their house down and started rebuilding a newer bigger one without the family's knowledge. Rest assured that they did ask if the family wanted a new coat of paint since they're doing it on the hospital and the father allowed the team to do whatever they want on the house, of cos not anticipating building a new one of cos. The team broke into their house to find out their likes and asked the neighbours about their children's interest. The children's grandmother was also on hand during the demolition, but she along with the neighbours were told not to tell them about the surprise. Really touching story and for those who missed it, dun worry, today's episode only covered the part 1 of 2, u can still catch the ending next sunday 3pm on channel 5.

A quote from the little girl,

When we're in hospital, we're like little caterpillars in a cocoon waiting to spread our wings to fly, but we can't leave earlier or we may not fly far

Ideal idling

Sometimes when u're having a tough time dun u just wish to be able to teleport to a nice quiet place to spend some time alone, thinking through things or just simply slack around to recharge. Its not like i'm troubled or anything, just that i was thinking wad my ideal idling place would be.

If i want to have some peaceful moments alone, i would love to be able to spend it on top of a nice hill with a lone pine tree at the top and un-obstructed view of the surroundings. Laying down on the grass patch under the shade of the pine tree, enjoying the nice breeze and just doing nothing. How great that would be. Anyway a nice breeze in the night would do for now.


On a side note, for returning NUS students if u haven't been reading ur mails, apparently The Deck(arts canteen) is opening this monday and there's gonna be Burger Kings and Olio Cafe on its 2nd floor. How cool is that man.

Time flies

How time flies without u realising it. This week marks Week 0 of the new academic year in NUS. New batch of students matriculating into the campus, attending talks on how to use stuff like CORS and IVLE while elsewhere a new batch of adults pours into the working population working hard to pay taxes to support the non-working ppl like me. I could still vividly remember the day I matriculated into NUS, collecting my student card and attending all the talks in Engin. My first day in Engin during Week 1, navigating through the maze-like campus. Memories still fresh and yet I'm no longer the newbie in NUS anymore. yay!

I went back to the nat lib last friday with eugene to return a book i borrowed before the exhibition ended and also eugene never been to the nat lib. Saw the security uncle who always talk cock with us, he hardly seems to know me already. Saw the usual librarians at the customer service counter, its the nice malay lady and the one we nicknamed 'sexy' for her different stockings. They remembered me alrite and gave me a nice smile when they saw me. The exhibition area is sooo different now, some photo exhibition is there and the sofa arrangement made the area a stranger to me. Anyway for those who haven been to the national lib, do go and take a look. The variety of books there beats any regional lib esp the comics, whole series could be found there.

Note: Lending section in basement, upstairs for reference only.

Linkin Park - What I've Done

Theme of Transformers the Movie

Nice MV, shows a lot of world issues.

I've come to realise that many people dun really know the proper way to brush their teeth, some are done in like 20s. Studies have shown that negligence in taking of your teeth can lead to heart diseases and other illness. Not that I'm a pro in such stuff but up to now i still practice wad i've learnt in primary school days where the school dentist teaches us the proper way to brush ur teeth. Sometimes when i'm in a hurry and have a quick brush, i just have the weird feeling all day. Most people realise that they need to brush their teeth for abt 2mins for it to be effective and we need to floss and rinse with mouthwash for a complete package.

For more info on brushing, click here.