Deutsch, deutsch, deutsch

Ingenieure sind sehr langweilige Leute, weil sie nur lernen. Ich bin einen Ingenieur und ich bin jetzt zu langweilig, deshalb ich hier schreibe, aber ich weisse niemand mir verstehen. Deutsch macht viel Spass.

What is 1+1?

Under what circumstance is 1+1 = 1? I am looking for a word here that can fit into this sentence,

"By_______, 1+1 = 1." Answers shall be revealed in 1 week's time.

Today I went to a workshop in Redhill to get a check on my bike, this workshop is well-known to be reliable among the bikers. I suspected my usual workshop in Tampines is placing me on the chopping board like a Big Fat Carrot after my visit there to get new tires. Apparently they said my brake pads were worn out, especially the rear one and quoted me $32 for a "Denmark' one. I did some research before I went there so i declined upon hearing the high price. So at the Redhill workshop I decided to change the pads anyway since its been more than a year, to my surprise its still in a pretty good condition after I compared it with one the workshop just changed for another guy. Mine still had about 4-5mm of the padding left while the other guy's worn out pad has only about 1mm left. And it only cost me $25, think its a Japanese product so I'm quite fine with it. So while I'm there I decided to get them to check on my squeaky front brake lever. It happened before, I think the start of the year, so the Tampines workshop changed some small part which doesn't seem defective in any way and charged me a whopping $45 for it. Here they said its just some dirt or something and sprayed some lubricants into the lever and its as smooth as ever, no parts dismantled! So I got the uncle to help me tighten my chain a little since I saw him doing for the guy before me and mine looked a little loose. Turns out the tire changing process was pretty f-ed up, realised the locking nuts wasn't tightened, the nut was too tight so the uncle managed to do everything swee swee for me and all I paid was $25 for the brake pad. I even found out that changing engine oil there is cheaper than at Tampines, and since its 'on the way' between NUS and Tampines, they just got a new regular customer.

A word of advice for vehicle owners, be it car or bike or whatever you're driving, try not to change all your brake pads together, because un-seasoned pads are less effective and by changing alternately, you at least have half of them 100% effective.

Have you checked your digital footprint?

Technology has sometimes gotten so scary yet most people dun realise it at all, at least before u read this of cos. Someday this week I watched an episode of Get Real! now hosted by Cheryl Foxx. She shown how normal users have left much of their personal information on this World Wide Web without even knowing it. To demonstrate she got a few IT-savvy students from Republic Poly(i think) to look for a long lost fren of hers. They have lost contact for about 20 years and all the info she gave to the students was her name, full name, nothing more nothing less. All it took the 5-6 students was about an hour or so and they found out info like her email, blog, her frens, marital status, address, telephone number among the many stuff. So with the phone number Cheryl called her long lost fren and true enough it was her.

What this show is that the WWW is not secure, at all. Many times we leave your digital footprint behind which in the end leads back to us, be it that harmless application for some freebie or u posting that ad on the classified. While most stuff the students managed to dig up are harmless, there are actually unscrupulous people who sell account info like password and stuff to equally unscrupulous people who buy them for purposes like fraud. So the next time u leave behind that phone number or address on the internet, think again.

Today I had an experience how easy it is to track a person through the internet, with just a name many information can actually come up, of course email, frens and blog would be among the most easily found. Anyway all this is NOT done by me, but by a fren of mine(I shall not say who) but he definitely did not have any evil thoughts going through his mind while he's doing it. And all he did was to goggle the name, imagine how easy it is man.

Ok genug genug, it means enough enough in german. My german tutor likes to say that in class all the time to get us to stop what we're doing. I realised the Spring O from Old Chang Kee turns out to be quite delicious, its just like the normal spring roll but thicker, more kick in it. Try it when u have the chance.

Before i forget, mi recre archery has gone on to a new level, 18m range. Gals have a little problem with this range cos u can see/hear some arrows hitting the ground instead of the board. Fundamentals and equipment really play a significant role at this range, i once shot a slightly curved arrow(its a little defective) and i saw the arrow suddenly changed course in its last 5m hitting the adjacent board instead, as if its a homing missile man. Archery is getting more fun, but its not really physically demanding, maybe next sem i shall try something else, either floorball or tennis.

Having plans to go Berkelah Waterfalls in Malaysia this Dec prob the 2nd trip (27-29) with the nus rovers since the first trip to Ophir with Colin and Chonghao was quite good. Anyone else wanna join in?

Freecyling... Pass it on

Just a quick post before i go to bed becoz i'm having mi regular 8am german class tml. 3 days ago after reading on an article abt freecycling i decided to join the yahoo group and see what's its all about. Basically freecycling is all about having its members giving its unwanted stuff to other members who might need it instead of chucking it into the bin or letting it end up with the garung guni. Its better than recycling in a way since it actually extends the life of that particular product since other members take up your offer becoz they have a use for it. So as soon as I joined the group i've come to realise that 80-90% of the post are request for items they need, not many offers are avail, though there are some real good offers like suitcases and women clothes and stuff. So taking a quick glance on my shelf I spotted the perfect item for an offer, my A'Levels Phy and Chem TYS. I'm not gonna need them anyway might as well pass it onto to someone who might need it. So within one day i got 2 offers for it, so thanks to Colin for choosing the lucky one and the books are gone now, more space for me! yeah~

Anyway after the adventurous hike up Mt Ophir with Nus Rovers, there are plans to take on a more fun yet less challenging hike(my body ached for a week after Ophir!) to Berkelah Falls this Dec and really looking forward to it. This time there's more ppl i know who r going and any frens still interested do contact me.

Has been quite some time since I last blogged, I'm typing this post at NUS' engin PC cluster right now. I'm doing some revision since there's only a 1hr lecture today, might as well do some work in campus than sleeping at home.

Started a facebook last week due to reasons I cannot recall but I find it rather interesting and interactive. In contrast, friendster looks so dead, lifeless. I find Warbook which is a game within Facebook rather interesting, reminds me of the game Archmage I used to play back in secondary sch. It getting more fun when u get up the ladder and fight it out with other people while u and ur frens help each other out, girls would probably find it boring but guys are just a sucker for games like this. Currently I'm playing this game with elson(lv 12) and Ben(lv 9) while new players have just joined this game, welcome Jon and vignesh. The more the merrier man.

SEP application for next academic year has just opened, I wanted to choose Uni of Karlsruhe which is slightly south of Frankfurt as my top choice as Karlsruhe is a small uni town, its much cheaper but it also attracts lesser people from going there as well. I would most probably choose to go Munich instead since the ME dept itself has 5 places there, if I get it, I'm more likely to survive in its all-german hardcore mech engin modules. Did I mention that germans take great pride in their mech engineering and mech engineers enjoy elitist status there, at least that's what i hear from a senior who just came back from germany exchange.

11/02 is going to have a steamboat dinner at Parklane Bugis this sunday, apparently at least 10 people are going to turn up so i'm looking forward to meeting them since the usual ones i meet in NUS are the engin ppl, jihui, chonghao, tionghan, jingsheng and hanlun and colin is the only one i meet outside so this sunday would be a great time to meet the rest of the class.

Oh, i heard this poll result through the radio today.

If a meteor is gonna to obliterate Earth tomorrow, what are you going to
do?

Most people chose to spend their time either having sex or with their loved ones, that seems normal since one should enjoy to its last. But what puzzles me is that some people actually chose to commit thef in their final moments of their lives. What the heck are you gonna do with all those money and valuables when there's no more Earth tomoroow? Maybe these people just wanna try something they were prohibited to do all their life in this final moments. How strange.

The packet of life

Today I finally went to donate blood while they were having the usual blood donation drive in NUS. I must say the experience is a lot better than I had expected. Its probably becoz they injected some anesthetics on the arm. I once had a high viral fever while serving NS which resulted in them putting me on a drip. The lousy medics inserted the thick needle into my arm 3 times since the first 2 failed terribly. NO anesthetics were used during the process.

Back to topic, I dun even feel a thing during the whole process, the only pain you will feel is the finger prick on blood testing and the initial injection of the anesthetic but that needle is very much thinner than the one used to draw your blood so no fear. In about 15 mins the whole drawing process is over. After that donors get to have some refreshments in the resting area while watching a movie. They were showing 300 while I was there and the refreshments include milo and other juices, food like apples, Oreo cookies and other biscuits. It was also nice of them to give first time donors a cert as an appreciation. I left within an hour from registration.

I hope those who still have some apprehension on donating blood would feel less apprehensive on donating blood after reading this and go for your first blood donation.