New home

h'ola! i have a new home! please change to http://dirtsideoff.wordpress.com/
thank you for visiting!. :)

なにかしているんだ。。。

まああ、いまからなにかしているんじゃないよ。つまらないねええ！！！

Heard from a friend recently that should I pass JLPT Level 2, I could get a work as an administrator with translation job for about SGD3500 a month. I said wow to that. Now that's a goal worthy of achieving don't you think?

Now, I'm waiting to take my JLPT Level 3, which by my reckoning is a tad easier. Can't get a decent job at a Japanese company where they can send you oversea, but it does help me a bit in opening up doors previously left closed. Now I can go to Japan and relatively understand what most people talk about...that is if I ever get to practice my listening skills...

To that end, I will try to insert a few sentences of Japanese phrases into my blog writing so as to familiarize, and hopefully ingrain the speech patterns into my head, so that when I do open my mouth to spout some nonsense, it'll be useful nonsense.

Which reminds me, 日本語の勉強するだ、今から始めて！！

たいへんですね！

Wow! Tonight's test is super hard!

Let's see. The total point for the school is 350 points for which the passing point is 175. On Tuesday, the comprehension has a 100 point weightage, tonight's test has 150 points for listening, dictation and kanji, this Sunday will see a 50 points oral, and finally on next Tuesday, another 50 points essay writing.

My expected points so far would be around 70 points from the comprehension paper that I am relatively sure of. If want to be really sure, then the points are only 60. From the listening part, from 150 points, I have lost around 15 points. So now, I have a grand total of let's see now, 135+60=...えっと。。。195!

Holy shit! I passed already! やった！！！

Now all I have to do is to ace my oral and essay, so i can stay in the top 30! Okay, maybe top 50! LOL!

Ohh, so tired!

Wah, today I am superman...

Not only do I have to study for my Japanese lesson's exam tomorrow, I got another exam on my plate in the morning! The bad part is, the morning exam has a course note that is 2 inches thick! Argghh!! My eyes!

For good or for bad, I am still not studying...I don't know why. No mood perhaps? Or some other thing...Need psychoanalysis to determine why the hell am I so lazy. LOL!

Oh, by the way, how long does it take to lose 6 kilos? Never! LOL! Why? Because you will put on 4 kilos due to muscle buildup, so in effect, you only lose 2 kilos. Hehehe...now...to look for something to help me gain muscle mass...running perhaps? Maybe some other ... "invigorating" exercise!

Heh heh heh!

Slow light?

Can light be slowed down enough for it to be useful in computing? Is it a need? Why the answer is yes and yes!

This is what Wikipedia said:

Researchers at UC Berkeley slowed the speed of light traveling through a semiconductor to 6 miles per second in 2004. This was in an effort to develop computers that will use only a fraction of the energy of today's machines.[1]

In 2005, IBM created a microchip that can slow down light, claiming that its light-slowing device is the first to be fashioned out of fairly standard materials, potentially paving the way toward commercial adoption.[2]

Well...I'd say that's something. Here's another one.

Hmm...but I got a question. why does the light speed up after it's being slowed down? How does the light sped up after it's been slowed down? What makes it speed up again? Did it really slow down? Or was it just our inaccurate instruments that erroneously told us that it is slowed? Did the light really slowed or did it just got blocked, bounced off into our eyes to be perceived, and another photon of light takes its place on the line? How do they know it's even the same photon of light? How do they measure they really only released only one photon?

Well...sorry for being a pain the the arse questioning machine...but I think they are valid, no?

しけん！

なんと！きょうはしけんをしまたね！！！
Oh, shitshitshitshitshitshit! 2 minutes after coming out of the exam room, and i went, "Oh shitshitshit! Shouldn't that be に instead of と???" Arghhh! Checked the notes, really really shouldn't have done that, and found out to my horror, it was supposed to be に!!! ARGHHHH!!! 3 points down the drain. :(

This exam was tougher and trickier than I thought. きょうねんしけんはさいきんしけんよりかんたんですね。。。

やっぱり。。。こんどしけんはかならずたいへんだけど。。。

じゃあ。。。みんなさん。。。しぬな！

がんばって！

ファイトーOH!!

Catch-22

Sometime ago some people asked me "How I get to become so good with the English Language." I answered him, "Because I read a lot!"

Now, I am learning a new language, one with the reputation of being both difficult and popular, Japanese. In both grammar and usage, I indeed find it very hard. "Hard as in how?" "If it's so hard, why didn't I just improve it like how I did for my English?" my detractors said.

Wish it were that simple. Allow me to explain. In order to improve my Japanese skills, I first need to read more. But in order to do that, I first need to understand more of what I read, and for that to happen, I need to understand the text. But before I can even begun to understand them, I need to know how to read them. To know how to read them, I need to be exposed to their usage everyday, but for that to even start to happen, I need to read which, unfortunately is back at the initial problem that I had.

Catch-22.

However, there is a way to break out of the circle. Through several years of slow, steady learning accompanied by light reading. First, it is imperative that I know how to read, especially kanji, the hardest of the three Japanese scripts. Only after adequately mastering kanji can I be reasonably capable of reading full Japanese texts.

Ahhh, when will I be able to both read, write and converse fluently in Japanese, I wonder...?

Decisions decisions!

これ。みて！
This camera, Nikon D200, the veritable successor of the good D100, and I have got my sights on this one after I found out Nikon D80's specifications don't differ much. For one thing, it has a lot of specs that I would expect to see in my first DSLR. But why would I want to buy a DSLR that is anything but entry level like the Nikon D50? Hmmm...must be the trait I inherit from my computer buying mind; buy the best you can afford now, and it will last you a long time until the next upgrade. Sure, I could use an entry level camera first, but you know, it just doesn't satisfy the gadget freak in me.

...

BUT! Wait-a-minute! What's this I see over at the Canon camp?
OMG! The Canon DSLR-40D!! Heck, If I think Nikon D200 is good, wait till you see the specs of this baby! It simply blows the D200 away! Arghh! My hands are itching to hold it, test it, caress it, and maybe buy it! Just...need...to...test...!

Photography

Recently, as in several days ago, my Casio Exilim EX-Z110 decided to kill itself and give me alot of trouble. Okay, so it isn't exactly dead yet, more like mutilated and going blind. Hahaha!!!

Anyway, I asked my friends here in Singapore, those photography nut-cases, about buying a digital SLR, and poof, they gave me a slew of advice about what and what-not to get. After several days of combing through the reading list, and trolling the Internet photography forums for buying tips, as well as product comparisons, I've come to a reasonable knowledge of what to get. Problem is, it's expensive as hell, and like hell, it's a hot item.

Now my dilemma is, to buy or not to buy. Look at the thing. Nikon D80. My friend has one. Another also brought one, albeit 2nd hand, and after I looked at the specifications, and compare it with it's higher spec-ed cousin, D200, and their attendant price difference, I feeling more and more like having this D80 than the D200.

What do you think?

Logical?

There's one website my friend told me today about an auction. Instead of the Ebay model, it is somewhat different. How?

Instead of the highest bidder, the item bid for will go to the...wait for it...LOWEST bidder! Yes! Unbelievable? It is! Of course, there are some twist to the story. Otherwise, everyone will bid the lowest price, which in this case is $0.01. So then, what is the twist?

It's easy, the condition (the twist) is, the lowest bid will win. And only the ONLY lowest bid will win. It means that if there are 9 bidders, and 8 of them bid an item for $0.01, and the last man bid for $0.02, the $0.02 bidder will win since he's the only one with the $0.02, which by far is the lowest single bid there is. Understand?

Now, let me tell you why instead of $0.01 that people expect to pay, people will pay only several percentage points lower than the stated retail price. Say an item is worth $289 at retail, people will actually pay around $250 instead of the expected $0.01.

It goes like this: there are 3 person; A, B, C. They all know the conditions. A will bid item D worth $100 for $0.01. B will also bid $0.01, however, he knew that A will bid $0.01, and thus B knows there since there can only be a single lowest bidder, having two $0.01 bidder will not do, and thus B will raise his bid a little, hence bidding $0.02. Now it's C turn to bid. C knowing A will bid $0.01, and so will B, C will try to bid $0.02. But he knows that if he bid $0.02, A will also try to bid $0.02 in the believe that B and C will bid $0.01.

This will go on and on in the believe that each of the other one will bid a higher bid than the previous bid, thus raising the bid price higher with every bid, each bidder bidding in the believe that their bid is the only single lowest bid.

I apologize as I am not able to put the explanation succinctly. However, that is the gist of what I'm trying to convey. And that is why these kind of bidding will use psychology to sell at a higher price than realized.

Till next time.

Very tiring this day

In class today, when I tried to listen in on the lectures...my head got so heavy I just slept intermittently for several minutes. Then I got bored sleeping like that, so I took out my Japanese class notes to revise. Bad mistake. My eyelid got heavier to the point that I can't even see what I'm writing!

Finally I hit upon a solution: I daydream. Yeah, i dream of a dream where I'm a multi-billionaire building elite schools for the gifted and talented who will in the end work for me and continue to make me billions in profit. Hehe, Didn't you know investment in education bring the largest possible return?

So much to do...

Another boring day. And another day when I splurge on several hundred dollars worth of goods that in the long run doesn't look to rosy. Look at this! My first dedicated badminton shoe cum running shoe cum whatever sports I happen to play, and look at the price...wait, don't think it's that much, but heck...I paid SGD$100 for that pair. Arghh...first day of paycheck, and this is what I splurge on. I am so going to get broke! Oh, by the way, I got the red one. Wanted for the shoe to be in all orange or some other bright colors but they're not available...sigh...

I don't know why, I have these sudden urges to wear some really bright colored clothes. Orange, red, bright blue, ultraviolet, hell, even fluorescent green! I have a fluorescent green vest, but that can only be used on official government business...so for casual wear, だめです。

Hmm...where did I put that photo of a really good looking "look" I found the other day...

おさしぶり

It's been long. How do you do?

Today, I was in a library, and as you know, libraries are supposed to be a quiet place of contemplation and study. And the librarian are the guardians of this peace and tranquility. Right?

So what happens when the librarian are the one making lot's of noise, and to top it all off, shushed other library visitors up? This librarian/guardian/stupid moron guy did what he did (today at least) deliberately. How? He was organizing some papers together to be stapled, and after stapling, keeps them in a pile in a box. The problem was this; he throws the paper into the box, knowing full well it will make a helluva noise, and even when I glared at him, he looked at me straight in the eye, and does it again and again...I don't know, to spite me?!

Arghhh!!!!

Anyway, I got a hing to complain about Singapore's virtual monopoly of bus services. They are always late, with irregular service timing, high fare, stupid scheduling and worse of all, they think they are giving the best service in the world! The nerve!! The ego! I'm writing a complaint letter to them as of now.

First Malaysian In Space?

So what?! That was the first question I asked myself. That was at the time when my application to be an astronaut was rejected. That was four years ago.

So what?! This is the question I ask myself now. This is the question I ask when I found out that the Malaysia's supposedly first astronaut is nothing more than a payload. A pissing, shitting, moving, dead-weight payload at that. NASA called him "Spaceflight Participant". I call him a waste of tax money. Now, I don't feel so bad about my application being rejected. Getting selected for this, although filled with momentary moments of euphoria, it will inevitably drag down my name to bed with the worms.

In order to commemorate this...wasteful 'achievement', the Malaysian government insists that he will conduct experiments. Real experiments. Serious real experiments. And if the grapevine is to be believed, seriously laughable real experiments. Some years back, some idiot of an MP (then again, which MP isn't an idiot?) suggested in Parliament that this 'spaceflight participant' conducts experiments to make teh tarik...in space! なんと！？！I was laughing so hard then my stomach almost burst open. Mind you that that was just one of those bonehead suggestions spouted and I have no idea how many of those nonsense was forwarded to NASA. Their reasoning is equally idiotic: to bring Malaysian culture into space??? Looking at the approved menu, I think they'll brag about the nasi briyani this 'spaceflight participant' will have there.

So, is this a great achievement? Hmmm......let's see. We have ...oh, waitaminute, look at this list! So many astronauts! Even better, look at this! Wow! Malaysians should really be proud! I feel that Dennis Tito has more respect. At least he didn't pretend to be something other than a tourist.

The dearth of superiority

A discussion with my friend recently spurred me to write the topic for today's entry. Superiority. Whose? Ours.

Have you ever noticed that over the years, as our collective and specialist knowledge gets more and more advanced and higher, the base knowledge of the average people gets more and more..diluted? In other words, we're getting dumber as we get smarter?

Allow me to explain my perplexing statement. How are we getting smarter? As I said, more and more knowledge was dredged from the deep mysteries of the universe. Rate of new knowledge discoveries keep on increasing. We are definitely marching into the future with confidant stride...but only for the elite few. And how are we dumber? Look at the school going children nowadays. Instead of acquiring more knowledge (relatively), they are acquiring less than those of their forebears. Examination questions the world over was 'watered' down so that more child could pass, thus ensuring that "No Child Left Behind", which ironically means that all child move ahead in life dumber. Passing grades continue to fall over the years in an effort to 'pass' all students for (of all reasons) the purpose of obtaining 100% passes!! This is ridiculous!!

There you see why as we grow smarter as a species, we also, at the same time, grow dumber as each component member of Homo Sapien grows dumber? It is only by averaging the sum total can we get an increasing average year by year. I'll leave the maths to you. I'm too dumb to count. LOL!

What does this mean then? So what if they get dumber? Why indeed..."So what!" indeed.

In case you haven't noticed, we need to get off this rock, this 3rd rock from the Sun. It is getting too crowded, and the faster we get off this rock, the better the chances of humans surviving our next meteor strike (tentatively 'scheduled' in several thousand years). And the faster we spread through space, the faster will our base collective knowledge grows, and the faster our knowledge grows, the faster we will step up to our next step in evolution...(actually, I don't know what's our next step in evolution...)!

Now, to get there, first we need to intensify the collection of knowledge. Spread this across the entire human race, it translates into more people generating knowledge. But knowledge cannot be generated by just any people. Only a small percentage does, and to get that small percentage, a huge percentage needs to be there to support them. It is akin to saying "Training a thousand to find the one.". But the quality of the Few depends on the quality of the whole. This said means that only smart people can breed smarter geniuses. And smart people can only be groomed if the standard of knowledge transmission (layman term: schooling!!) is not compromised!

In other simpler terms, the standards of the exams must be tougher, more challenging. Rewards should be given to the top achievers. Mediocrity should be discouraged. And the useless discarded, if possible. Imagine, if more people were rewarded for revolutionary breakthroughs, wouldn't it be better for us?