Was out for more than 12 hours yesterday. First, I went to NUS with chee hui and kenny in the morning to check into hall. The room is quite small, with barely enough space for walking between the two beds. The trip to NUS was long, I'm glad I won't have to do it everyday. Maybe I'll give chris or hock a call occasionally and ask them, "How's the traffic? I just woke up." Oops I think they'll kill me, haha. chee hui went to look for cheap textbooks while kenny went to pick up his business matric package. kenny also made us walk quite a bit, because he kept making us get off at the wrong bus stop. The NUS macs is cheaper than outside, by more than $1 for the meals, but the desserts are still the same price.

Next I went back to my sec school with YH and ben to look for our upper sec maths teacher. Had a long chat with her. Things have really changed there. Many places are under renovation and the school seems much smaller. They were also having some sort of singing compeititon at the atrium. Most of them can't sing. When you hear a good one, it's usually the background track.

After dinner, I had to go for tuition.

Accidentally stepped on another lizard last night. I don't know why they like to cross my path like that. I'm just walking peacfully, going on my merry way, and they have to dash out and just end up where my heel is landing at the exact point in time when it lands. It's my second time too. Yucks.

Chris and dwin have already blogged about the platoon gathering on Monday, so I won't bother. Dwin has put up the pictures too, with his newly written photo montage function on applerings.

After a long period of 2 years and 7 months, my occupation will be student again. In the past 2 years, I have been an NSF, then unemployed, an usher, teacher, then unemployed again. Long holidays aren't as good as they seem. Unless you have the motivation to keep learning new things, they dull your mind. However, it's difficult to learn new things unless you constantly apply your new self taught skills. As a result, I usually only learn enough about something to accomplish a specific task. Google comes in very handy. I learnt just enough CSS to do a blogskin, enough JavaScript to do random numbers and a countdown timer, enough MS Excel to make spreadsheets that do away with tedious calculations. I had the most fun during my stint as a relief teacher. Kids are cute and seem to have an infinite supply of energy, haha, and they're much smarter then what many people give them credit for.

I'll have to check-in to my hall this week. It's so much trouble. Entering NS was much easier. I didn't have to do anything. Although I went down to the army market to buy some stuff, I realised that the SAF provided everything I need, including bed sheets, pillow cases, footwear, towels, clothes and even toilet paper. Now I have to go buy my own linen, find a spare pillow and bring in clothes.

Hall orientation will be two weeks long, and I haven't got a laptop yet, so chee hui, looks like there'll be no solitaire showdown for some time, and you'll have to find someone else to proofread your blog posts, haha. There's a lot of paperwork to be done and still many unknowns ahead. The bidding system looks like some kind of incomprehensible auction with 2 types of currencies and with different stages like the primary school admission exercise.

There were a couple of forum letters last week which I found interesting. One was about how motorists should treat cyclists as fellow road users. In response, someone else wrote one which gave examples of how cyclists only obey rules when it is to their advantage. That is certainly very true. Cyclists consider themselves road users, till they need to go past red lights or zebra crossings. Suddenly they become pedestrians. Some even cycle against the flow of traffic.

The other letter implied that scientists and mathematicians are not the most creative of people. That received a few replies in today's forum. The first writer failed to appreciate the creativity required to solve scientific and mathematical problems. Perhaps it isn't music or poetry, but I think problem solving certainly requires a great deal of creativity.

Some board or committee decided that it would be a brilliant idea to erect a large NDP board on the roundabout near an MRT station. Hock, Jol and YH should know which one I'm referring to. Now I can't see the traffic on the whole roundabout at one time when using it to make a U turn. It's not really a safety problem as drivers should still be able to see approaching traffic going around the roundabout, but the reduced visibility makes me uneasy.

Watched Pirates of the Carribean with kenny, chris and kev on Wednesday, but forgot to blog about it. Anyway, it was a pretty good show and very funny at times. As there will be a third show, the ending for this one was quite a cliffhanger. Dwin mentioned that there was a snippet at the end of the credits that wasn't worth watching, so of course, we just had to stay till the end of the credits to watch what was not worth watching. Makes perfect sense right? Or we would have gone off wondering what it was that wasn't worth watching. zq went to watch with someone else instead of us, so he missed the snippet. When I got back he asked me what it was he missed that was not worth watching, haha. See? Don't watch with us. Anyway, this just shows that telling people not to do something only makes the forbidden fruit more attractive.

Met up with the RIGE people at Orchard yesterday. As usual, eux was late, but jy was later. We went to crystal jade for lunch, just ate la mian and ordered a few baos. Before we decided to eat there, we had walked past a japanese restaurant, looked at their prices, and found them to be too expensive. As we were eating, we saw 4 secondary schoolgirls walk out of there, and talked about old times when the most expensive place we would go to for lunch was McDonalds, haha. Kids nowadays seem to be quite well off. At MPCL, there will be primary school children buying drinks from the cafe there.

We spent the time catching up, and recalling the fun we used to have. After lunch, we wandered in circles around ngee ann city talking until our legs got tired and we went to macs to sit down. After some time, a couple of them had to go off and the rest of us went to play LAN. Tried playing battle for middle earth, since none of us had played that before. We were utterly defeated by the computer. Next we played a standard game of warcraft, Reign of Chaos and not the Frozen Throne expansion pack. All of us were rusty, but at least we managed to win the computer this time.

After that, I had to rush down to city hall to meet my platoon mates for dinner, since dwin will be flying off soon. We went to kenny rogers for dinner. Timo the big boss showed up 2 hrs late, after we had already finished eating, and then left us early. Haven't had such a gathering with them for a long time. Usually only a few of us are free enough to go for kenny's frequent lunch sessions at parkway.

Went to carrefour to buy drinks, then we went to the sky garden to talk. Discussed our laptop plans for uni, and also spent quite a lot of time scolding zq for his intention to go for another gathering. Clement is good at that. Only left there at 1030pm. We could have talked some more, but it was getting late.

Anyway zq, we understand. Really :)

The list of school notebooks is out, so I went with kenny and YH to Funan to take a look at the models. There's a huge discount for some of them, and the one provided by the school even has Macromedia Studio, which is worth about $500. Software is really expensive. Looks like I'll be buying from them, but everyone seems to be eyeing the same laptop, so we'll probably all get identical ones, haha.

Finally got the email from the hall, I'll have to check in next week, so I have less than 1 week left at home. I'll have to start preparing soon. It also looks like I have no choice but to share a room with a total stranger. Hope the person turns out to be ok.

Nearly got into an accident today. There are two lanes turning right, and I was in the leftmost one. There was a blue pickup truck in the rightmost lane. When the green arrow came up, we both started the turn. The vehicle in the rightmost lane is supposed to turn into the rightmost lane of the destination road. This is mentioned in the theory books, and it is also how you have to drive to pass your driving test. Of course, this doesn't actually happen on the roads. Most people drift one lane to the left to increase their turning radius and hence reduce the strain on the tires. However, nearly all drivers who do so will ensure that there are no cars on the left before they turn into the "wrong" lane. This van driver didn't. I was turning into the middle lane, just as I should be, but he started coming closer and closer. Luckily the left lane was empty and I could swerve into it. He didn't even change course when I horned him. Now thanks to him, my dad still won't let me drive alone. At least I managed to avoid an accident.

Turned out that it was quite easy to make my countdown timer recognise time zones. All I had to do was to change the way I initialised the date. Just had to add in GMT+0800. Dwin told me the answer, but when he mentioned it I already went to peek at his blog code to see how he did it. Still have to test it but it should be fine now.

Also, new images have been added for the random display picture on the left. Enjoy.

ZQ has finally fixed the tiling problem on his blog when viewed on resolutions higher than 1024px in width. Actually I told him that as soon as he changed skin, but as I didn't know enough CSS yet, I couldn't help him do anything about it. I was forced to figure it out to make my own blogskin, so this time I could help him out. What prompted it was a public complaint from dwin on his tagboard. Dwin did give him a starting point, but it looks like a public tag will get him moving faster than a private message, haha.

Today's Digital Life talked about technology in schools, especially Crescent Girls School. The lucky students there get to do all their work on tablet PCs with specially designed software to help them learn. Canberra Sec even builds on their students basic Microsoft software knowledge by teaching them Macromedia Flash. While all that is just fine, I think the schools should also highlight free alternatives to commonly used software such as MS Office, Photoshop and even Windows.

Students are poor folk. Younger ones depend on their parents for money. Those who don't obviously won't have much cash to spare. Of course there are the rich ones, but those are in the minority. After giving students a glimpse into the power of the software, there will be those who want to practise more on their own. How can students afford to buy Flash Professional for US$249(education price)? Windows XP Home costs $135 for the OEM version, the boxed version is much more expensive. Adobe Photoshop CS2 is listed as US$649. PS Elements still costs around S$100. MS Office Student Teacher Edition is S$129. Most of this software will probably have newer versions in a year.

With the current focus on IT, it's nearly impossible to do schoolwork without having a computer and the necessary software to open the ubiquitous MS file formats. Schools should also point out the existence of free alternatives like OpenOffice and The Gimp which will allow them to legally enjoy the benefits of the IT age without burning a huge hole in their pockets. The other alternative is software piracy, which certainly isn't a very nice thing to teach our kids.

Note: The above 2 links are alternatives to MS Office and Photoshop. Both are free and have versions which will work in Windows. There are some differences and limitations, but they should be fine for most users.

On a whim, I googled my full name inside double quotes. Ok, a few factors led to this whim, but that's not the point. Google returned 2 results.

Here's the first one.

Chee Hui and Dwin your names are in there too, top 10 some more. Mine's far far below, haha. Never knew there was an online copy of this list.

The second one looks like the blog of a sec school friend who I've lost contact with. Going to check it out and see if it's him.

Hmm, some other stuff. Saw a report in the papers yesterday about drivers who don't give way to ambulances. An ambulance driver gave an example of a taxi driver who refused to budge. The ambulance was on the way to the airport to pick up a patient. The taxi driver thought the ambulance was joking as there is no hospital at the airport. Here's another example of someone who didn't think through this very much. Does he actually think that it's only an emergency when a patient is inside?? Or perhaps he thinks there are ambulances stationed all over Singapore, when one is needed, they can arrive at the patient's location in a minute and only after that will it need to race to the nearest hospital. Maybe he thinks they work like taxis, roving around till a patient flags them down and only then do they need to be rushed to hospital. Come on, ambulance response is a two way thing. You need to get the ambulance to the patient, then you need to get the patient to the hospital. The total time taken is what matters. People don't usually call an ambulance because they think, "I'm going to have an accident in 10 minutes, better call an ambulance down now, then it won't need to rush here." Of course, there are situations when an ambulance will be stationed near a dangerous activity, but not giving way to an ambulance just because you know there's no hospital in the airport is incredibly selfish and short-sighted.

ZQ, one of my loyal blog readers, posted a comment to the previous post. Well, other sports, especially the individual events, have targets based on the previous games which they can meet. The result taken is a recent one. Also, the return may not be immediate, but it's the long term goal we should look at, which is to reach the World Cup, supposedly by 2010 but I think the next 15 years or so would be more realistic. We need to give our young players experience to get there.

I've just been hanging around at home these few weeks. Sometimes kenny will ask the few of us to parkway for lunch, but on tues we went to his house instead. He cooked spaghetti, but dwin claims it's fried noodles. I wasn't watching so I don't know which it is. Anyway, thanks to the sauce, it still tasted like spaghetti. Played some NFS on his computer, then dwin chris and I went to the parkway macs when kenny had to go off for tuition. Dwin had brought his laptop along as he wanted to prod chris into finishing up his new blog design. They finished it there, then dwin asked for something unique to place on his blog. Since he has a fetish for penguins, I suggested making a penguin which will dive off the side of a post, accelerating as it goes. Erm, he took me seriously and sent me a prototype the same night, done with javascript. Helped him debug it, but he probably would have found the error in the next 5 mins anyway. Now, it's up on his blog, but it can only be seen on screens with a horizontal resolution higher than 1200. If you have a large enough screen, go to Dwin in my links and check it out.

Read the Sports page today and it said Singapore won't be sending the U23 team to the Asian Games. It seems they didn't do well enough in the SEA games. I think that's a very short sighted position. How do we intend to qualify for the World Cup if our players don't even get a chance to play in regional tournaments? It's pretty silly to base the criteria on past games performance. It's just like playing solitaire showdown. If I'm playing with an equally good opponent, the chances of winning should be 50%. Just because he has won the last 3 games doesn't mean he'll win the 4th one. Note that this fails when playing with jeryl, I tend to lose many games in a row as the condition of equally matched opponents is not met.

More importantly, the team could have improved since the last tournament, but now they no longer have a chance to prove their worth. It reminds me of what happened in primary school. In P2, the teacher picked the players for the telematch by asking who played in P1. At that time, it seemed like a vicious cycle to me. After P1, no one else will stand a chance if the teachers pick the same people every year, just because they are the ones with experience. Are our soccer players just going to languish in the S-league? With no hope of playing in more prestigious tournaments and gaining valuable international experience? Maybe that's why few people will consider soccer as a career.

Another absurd belief is the one which assumes that time will lead to a team which will finally qualify for the World Cup. A little bit of thought will tell you how absurd this is. Saying "Maybe we'll get there in 50 years" doesn't make sense. Players age and are replaced. The new players are not the old ones, good veterans don't necessarily lead to a good young team. It's true that they can mentor younger players, but the younger players must develop their own style and skills. After 50 years, a few generations will have passed, and unless something is done about getting more people into professional soccer, we'll still be in the same place. More time won't make us give birth to kids who are natural talents.

I've just borrowed a book titled "Say No to Microsoft". The views in there are very biased, but considering the title, they would be. However, I don't like some statements which may mislead people. The author says that he has never used Outlook and has never been infected by an email virus. The next sentence "Coincidence?" suggests that Outlook users are at great risk. Well I've used Outlook and Outlook Express for a long time and I've never been infected too. I think it all comes down to being careful and paranoid when it comes to email attachments.

It is true that non-Windows operating systems are at lower risk of virus attacks, but will that still be true if they have greater market share? Perhaps it will be, their code may be more robust. However, the greater user base will make them more attractive for hackers, and the more robust code will only serve as a greater challenge. That said, I still like the concept of the open source movement. They should be able to rise to the challenge of a virus quickly and close off the weakness, probably much faster than Microsoft can.

I wanted to change my blogskin for some time, but having scored C for art since primary school, I had no idea what to use. However, ZQ moved over to blogspot last week, and made his own skin with some help from a friend. I copied his idea of using a notebook format, and took a photo of a blank page A5 sized notebook and my desk.

Chris offered to help, so I sent him the photos, which weren't too good as the sun was setting and it was getting dark. The next day, I took a few more, but he had already edited it to get the book you see. He also edited the desk picture, which was brighter on one side, so the lighting is more even. This allowed me to position the book separately from the background, so it appears in the center of the browser regardless of the screen size. However, the desk background is only 1280*1024, so for those with larger monitors, the background will tile.

Chris also made the navigation tabs you see on the right, and added a drop shadow to both the tabs and the book. After dwin suggested rollovers, he made the images for that too. Move your mouse over the navigation tabs on the right and see it for yourself.

Dwin was the one who pointed out that I had to specify widths and heights for my <div> tags. He also told me to use a <center> tag to center the book. This saved me a huge headache. It was also because of him that I put in so much effort into coding for at least 2 screen resolutions and making sure the code works for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Try it and see. However, the browsers display things slightly differently, so there are slight discrepancies, especially in the size of the headings.

The number below the text "Cosine's Corner" in the top right hand corner of the book is the stat counter. I racked up about 100 hits yesterday testing everything. Oops.

Hmm, also have to thank those who are using custom blogskins. By examining their code, I figured out how to code the navigation tabs without too much trouble. Thanks Jol, your old blogskin was a great help.

ZQ has also inspired hock and dwin to redo their blogs, or rather to ask chris to do blog designs for them, so chris has been rather busy, haha.

Anyway, if you have any comments about the new layout, just tag and I'll consider your suggestions. Thanks to all who helped.

There was a letter last week about a Carl's Jr advertisement. I can't remember the details, but the idea was to blame fast-food advertisements for the rising obesity in children. This week, someone else wrote back saying that parents should be the ones who are responsible for the their children's diets. He finds it amusing that there are an increasing number of lawsuits in the US filed by families against fast-food chains because their kids are suffering the results of way too many burgers.

I find those lawsuits just as absurd as those by smokers against tobacco companies. A bit of common sense should tell anyone that eating hamburgers every single day isn't healthy, and there have been many reports on the dangers of smoking. If you choose to ignore them, then you bear the consequences. Trying to make someone else pay for your mistake flies in the face of reason. It certainly is very amusing that the courts even entertain this, but I guess it gives the lawyers a good laugh, and anyway they're getting paid. It's good that someone has the sense to realise that parents are responsible for their child's diets and succumbing to advertising is a lousy excuse for being obese.

The long expected rise in taxi fares is finally going to take place next Monday. ComfortDelgro is raising the flag down rate to $2.50, and it will cost 10 cents for 215m for journeys less than 10km, and 10 cents for 175m after 10km.

The reason is the high cost of fuel. It seems that many cabbies have been complaining that high fuel prices are eating into their already thin margins. I suppose this is justified, considering that fuel prices have really risen a lot lately. However, many cabbies, and also many drivers in general, have astoundingly inefficient and short sighted driving habits. These bad habits waste fuel, then they gripe about the prices. It's true that prices are high, but instead of griping about them and doing nothing, they can easily cut down their fuel consumption, it's just that they don't want to.

I have seen many drivers who do not look very far ahead. When I see a red light in the distance, I'll release the accelerator and let the car coast to it. Some drivers behind me think I'm too slow. They'll cut to the right, overtake and zoom forward. This is about the time they realise that they can't go any further because the light is still red. A few seconds later, I'll coast up beside them, and may even end up ahead, depending on the actual traffic in each lane. Of course, some will come back to the same lane after overtaking, but now they're only one car ahead, and at what cost?

Other cases include attempted overtaking on the left, only to find out that everyone is on the right because of an obstruction. They accelerated, and are forced to slow down to wait for an opening to move back to the lane.

Next, we have the drivers who think they're in a race. They're first off the line when the light turns green, and accelerate quickly. Next they realise that there is another red light ahead, and they're forced to stop. Meanwhile, the cars who chose to take the more fuel efficient option of accelerating at a slower pace end up right beside them.

While an aggressive driver may reach a destination sooner, how much will this cost in fuel? Is it worth it? Consider driving on an expressway. A driver going at 90km/h will be about 10% faster than one who travels at 80km/h. For a 15km journey, that's only about 1 minute. At high speeds, air flow is turbulent and drag increases at the square of the speed. The car at 90km/h will experience about 20% more drag. However, the power required will be about 30% more. For those who want to know why, search wikipedia for "air resistance". (I hope I got my maths right.) Let us assume that power and fuel consumption are directly related. Say I need 1 litre of fuel for the 15km at 80km/h. The driver who goes at 90km/h will need 1.3 litres. With those 300 ml, I could have travelled another 4.5km. The advantage the faster driver gets is one minute.

Say I spend $200 a month on fuel. The faster driver will spend $260. I can buy another week and a bit more with the difference. And the faster driver only saves 1 minute for every 15km, assuming both vehicles maintain their respective speeds. In addition to that, the more aggressive driver will wear out his brake pads faster.

If taxi drivers ever thought about this, they can save a lot on fuel, especially if they cut down on the very silly act of accelerating towards red lights just to go there and stop. Personally, I think that is the most stupid thing to do. At least fast driving on an expressway gets somewhere, even if it may cost more fuel. However, accelerating quickly to stop again soon after is a total waste.

Note: The people referred to here are those who drive like that. If you don't, there is no need to get all worked up. I know that not all taxi drivers drive like that, but there is no denying that there are those who zoom towards red lights. I've seen them.

I borrowed the whole series from dwin, and I've just finished reading it. I've heard from somewhere that it's a Christian story. I treat it as a work of fiction, but there are certainly many parallels between the stories and the Bible.

The first book describes the creation of the world of Narnia by a supreme being, the lion Aslan. Similar to biblical creation, first the world was created, then the animals. There is no mention of evolution. An evil is introduced into the world in the form of a wicked witch. The boy who brought the witch in has to make amends by taking an apple from a tree in the centre of a garden. He is not supposed to eat the apple. The description of the place makes it sound like Eden. However, the witch is already there and tries to tempt him to eat it. Unlike Eve, the boy does not succumb, although he came close to doing so. Sounds like the serpent tempting Eve in Genesis 3.

The second book in the series is "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". It was the book that was made into a movie. The most notable parallel would be the killing of Aslan by the witch, and his subsequent resurrection. Aslan had offered himself to the witch in exchange for the life of one of the children, who had been a traitor but subsequently repented. Aslan himself had done no wrong, but paid for the misdeeds of the boy. This is similar to Jesus dying on the cross for all of us sinners.

Throughout all the books, Aslan is portrayed as one who is omnipotent and omniscient. He is the benevolent lord who will help those who believe in him in their time of need. Just like in our world, the fictional world of Narnia also has unbelievers. There are many who have not seen him with their own eyes, and thus they do not believe.

The next few books tell of adventures in Narnia. They usually involve a king denied his rightful place on the throne. Throughout it all, Aslan will be there to help the protaganists through the darkest parts of the journey. His presence gives them courage and new strength.

I just finished reading the 7th book today. It's titled "The Last Battle". There are many parallels between that story and the Bible as well. The story starts off with an ape who dressed his donkey up in a lion's skin, and passed it off as Aslan. This happens near the end of the world. This is similar to the biblical account of the end times, which warns of false prophets. Many are deceived by this ape.

When the world ends, the animals are judged, just like how we would be judged on the last day. Some see Aslan and run away terrified, but others see him and are pleased. Those are the ones that enter through a magic doorway into another world, more beautiful than the one they left, and yet the same.

In this new paradise, the animals and people don't tire, and they are perfectly happy. This parallel is further strenghtened when it is later revealed that the children have died in a railway accident back in the "real" world.

While these books are meant for children, it was quite an interesting read. Anyway, I don't think I could have spotted so many hidden meanings if I had read them when I was younger.

Went to dwin's house on Friday night with zq and kenny to watch the Germany vs Argentina match. Actually I could have watched it on sctv at home, but watching with a few friends is more fun.

The match itself was quite boring, with only 2 goals scored, 1 by each team, so the match progressed into a 0 goal extra time, then into penalties. As a result, it didn't end until nearly 2 am. The players were very rough and quite cautious. There wasn't much of the entertaining football they showed during the group stages.

dwin isn't a soccer fan, during the match, the stayed in his room and went to sleep early. We didn't want to disturb him, so zq and I went to sleep on the sofa after the match, while kenny stayed up to watch the 3am Ukraine vs Italy one. dwin's sofa armrests are a bit too high to sleep comfortably, but we managed, haha. Perhaps I should have stayed up for the 3 am match, it seemed pretty good, with a final scoreline of 3-0. After that match, kenny fell asleep sitting up. I happened to wake up a few times to change my position. The suddenly excited voice of the commentator also woke me up a few times, but I didn't really bother looking.

At about 7am, dwin came down and seemed very surprised to find all of us asleep on the sofa, and offered us the use of his queen sized bed with many pillows and a comforter. zq and I went back to sleep, while kenny seemed more interested in food. When I woke up, I found them watching Pirates of the Carribean. Played a bit of starcraft after that. dwin hasn't lost his touch. Went home after that. That was the first time during the World Cup that I stayed out overnight to watch a match. Not sure if we'll be doing it again, since the other matches will be shown on channel 5 anyway.