I just completed my two-week stint working as a teaching assistant at the Stanford Uni EPGY expository writing workshop held at HwaChong. Two weeks ago, I had another two-week class teaching folks in prison school website design and Photoshop as part of our GESL community work quota. Our group enjoyed ourselves so much, some of us are thinking of going back for more sessions...
Friday, December 8, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Silly FAQs / Shure Earphones
I'm doing some research on the Core 2 Duo system that I'll be building. So far I've completed research on the motherboard/processor, and am still left with the graphics card, hard drive, memory, monitor, sound card and chassis. Before getting the sound card, I'm also considering buying a Shure microphone in the future, and so needed to know more about the configuration...
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Portal Redesign
I just attended a preliminary research debrief of the 'rebuilding the Portal' focus group interview session that I participated last month. They gave me a $20 Robinsons voucher for my time. I'd have given them money instead if that meant that my two cents would be considered by them. The school portal as it stands, can probably be described as, at best, 'it works OK,...
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Cover Girl
I've just discovered that the aircraft repaint I did last year made the April cover of Computer Pilot magazine! I'm going have to buy that back copy now...heheI'm taking too long a flying hiatus, shall resume next month when I get a new Core 2 Duo desktop... wooh...
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
On Naivety
Princeton Uni professor Harry Frankfurt has come out with a new book called On Truth after his On Bullsh*t became an unexpected hit. I haven't seen the Truth book yet, but Stephen Colbert's On Truthiness might just as as informative. Today, we shall look at a new pamphlet called On Naivety, something that speaks the truth to a lot of us, I reckon. From the ST:Opposition...
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Garmin Constructivist Logo
My favourite GPS manufacturer Garmin announced their new logo a week ago. This is the old one they've used for the past 16 years. Nice globe.This is the new one; it's very classy.Naturally, one might ask what the triangle represents. The reply from the person writing in the company blog was: we don't really know; you tell us!And I thought, wow! The customer needs to...
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
SPUG
Just a public service announcements for Palm users. SPUG is currently down. The situation is currently being monitored. If need be, a Task Force will be formed next week, and some Emergency Plan might be implemented. Anyway, it'll probably be offline for a while... In the meantime, just surf the other websites on the Internets; there are lots of them besides SPUG!...
Monday, October 16, 2006
Speak Good English!
I'm not exactly sure how my pedagogy stacks up against established schools of thought, but here's just a reminder to all: speak good English, and be understo...
Friday, October 13, 2006
Corrinne May Preview
Corrinne is doing a Christmas concert again at the Esplanade on 16th December. Tickets on sale Oct 19th. New preview songs are out at her myspace.Update(!): Listen to the new Christmas album and preorder an autographed CD n...
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Stop The Presses!
Today's activity is: Spot the differences! (Click for larger pictures.)Oops, I thought maybe they didn't like the layout and decided to shift the story elsewhere in the online version of today's TODAY newspaper. Turned out the story was removed altogether. Maybe the headline could give us some clues...Oh no, perhaps the story got pulled because it distorts the truth (just...
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Singapore Dreaming / 望春風
I watched Singapore Dreaming with Steph this past week. If you haven't watched it, it'll be showing at GV until at least next Wednesday. Now this is one of the top 2 local movies I've seen; and I can't decide what number one is.The even better thing is that the music that starts off the movie, 望春風, is one of my favourite songs. Its motif gets done in different ways and...
Monday, September 25, 2006
Gillette Fusion Power
How much money does a company need to spend in order to create the world's best selling 'shaving system'? Well, in 1998, Gillette spent US$680 million to come out with the Mach 3. I bought the slightly improved Mach 3 Turbo three years ago. In early 2006, they released the new Fusion, with 5+1 razor blades. This development was predicted in 2004 by The Onion (warning:...
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Rewriting Spam
Angie sent me the following email message. It looks like spam. Why can't spam be more easily understood? The second version is my rewrite.--------- Forwarded message ----------From: SARTORI Date: Sep 6, 2006 11:38 PMSubject: PLEASE I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE KINDLY HELP!FOR THE WORK OF GOD.I do not intend to baised your feeling as you read this mail therebymaking you feel...
Monday, September 4, 2006
Irwin Felled By Stingray
Sometimes the truly ironic thing in life is that one can be killed by the very creatures one loves the most. In Australia, there are plenty of ways to get killed by wildlife. I'd recommend the first chapter in Bill Bryson's very funny Down Under.Two months ago I printed out a technical manual meant for salespeople, and put Steve on the cover. It only seemed natural for...
Thursday, August 31, 2006
How Do Search Engines Work?
I was looking at my logs recently and found something quite bizarre. Go to Yahoo! Singapore, and put in 'xiaxue' in the search box. (She is Singapore and Asia's most popular blogger.) The first search result would be her blog, right? Strangely, no...
The Social Sciences All Mixed Up Together
School has been lots of fun, even though right now I'm still stuck at a 400-word short essay trying to argue why 'the English Language Syllabus serves no useful purpose for the English teacher.' Hmm... maybe I should be arguing for the opposite...Besides dealing with languages, I'm also doing this thing called Social Studies. Now, in my experience, this was one subject...
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Tiger Woods Is An Alien/Swing Portrait
For many years, I've had the suspicion that golfer Tiger Woods isn't really a human, but an alien from the planet SasQuatch. That guy is a bloody machine, for crying out loud! A new feature that appeared a few days ago at NikeGolf's website seemed to confirm my worst fears.The Nike folks used a digital camera capable of capturing 4000 frames per second, pointed it at...
In The Jungle/Teacher's College
So a few weeks ago I started school again at Teacher's College. This place is really cool. It's in the middle of a thick secondary tropical forest and they simply cleared away some land to make way for a very nice campus. The library is especially wonderful. I'm writing this sitting at the circular balcony on the fourth floor, it feels like I'm in some exotic place, with...
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Truth In Advertising: Real Reason For GRC
As I was flipping my paper version of The Straits Times a few hours ago, I thought their editorial office had been hacked by The Onion or something. Something got published that just wasn't supposed to be revealed to the populace. But it's one of those things that makes this country just absolutely fascinating for someone like me who likes to read National Education pronouncements...
Monday, June 12, 2006
Aussie Socceroos Win!
Wow!!! A few hours ago, I switched off the TV with 10 minutes to go between Japan and Australia; Australia was trailing 0-1. I thought the Roos weren't really playing inspiring stuff and a few minutes won't make much of a difference. I just read that the Roos had beaten the Japanese 3-1!! Substitute Tim Cahill scored three times in eight minutes!Go Aussies! I like this...
GSM Mobile Phone Tells You Where You Are
La what?! When this appeared on the handphone today, I thought I got a handphone virus and promptly switched it off! hahaa... It's about time the telcos switched on this feature. When I was in Perth, I would get Northbridge in the bedroom, and East Perth in the living room. It's really quite fun...
Saturday, June 3, 2006
How Does One Understand Irony/Satire?
"If you're going to tell the truth, you'd better make people laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you."~(probably) George Bernard ShawI was just thinking about what Mr. Wang wrote about Dr Lee, our Information Minister. I've talked about him before, and this time, it's about mrbrown's podcasts. At Wang's comments section, there's an interesting discussion about whether mrbrown...
Friday, May 19, 2006
Maths: Election Rally Attendance Numbers
Phew! The NDA agreement I signed with myself has expired today, so I can start writing again. I've got a few entries backlogged. This one is about the election. I attended only one rally; the Last Night of the Proms at Serangoon. I wrote then in the forums...I just came back from the Serangoon Stadium rally...darn it, this is the first time I've truly felt Singaporean......
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Sony Ericsson Z520i
This morning, the screen of the Nokia 8210 that I've been using for the past five years suddenly went dim. So I had no choice but to look for a new handphone. Problem was, my impression of the latest handphones was that they just wouldn't good enough. Yes, they have colour screens and so on whereas the venerable 8210 has a monochrome screen, but the newer phones that...
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Travelling Great-grandparents
Stranger! If you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?~To You/Leaves of Grass/Walt WhitmanIf you meet someone that you don't know on the streets, it's reasonable to think of that person as a stranger. But I just read in this month's Geographics that even though he's not someone you know, he's still...
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Straits Times Survey: Almost Half Of Respondents Don't Trust Straits Times
Oops! From today's Straits Times:Believe those blogs? Only 1 per cent find them credibleIT MANAGER Jerry Chia, 34, trusts the newspaper in his hand more than a fleeting TV snippet for his daily dose of local news. To keep up with local politics, he would rather read a page of analysis in the newspaper than catch a newsflash on TV. His preference is typical of 88 per cent...
Bibbulman Track / Hewett's Hill Campsite
Two days ago, I walked the Bibbulmun Track. Well actually, just 1% of it since the whole trail is almost 1000km long! Took the first 7am bus to the Kalamunda, found the Northern Terminus traihead, but promptly got lost within the first 100m. Luckily, that didn't happen too often for the rest of the 20km return hike.The view before the descent to Piesse Brook. The plan...
Heirisson Island
OK Amy, here's proof that 1) there's an island called Heirisson Island, and 2) kangaroos live on this island! LOLThis place rocks. The last time I was here, there were I think six kangaroos. This time I either saw two, or four (because I was unsure if the two that I saw initially were the same two that I saw a few minutes later.) Can you see them 'roos?!The good thing...
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