HDB Flat

A couple of us (NP colleagues) met up with a mutual friend for lunch yesterday. She told us that she applied for a HDB flat two years ago. At that time, they (her husband and she) decided not to over-stretched themselves, so they opted for a 4-room flat.
The queue for the 4-room flat was very long and she was not successful whiles her friend who opted for a 5-room flat got his choice. The demand for bigger flat was much softer then.
She has been trying ever since and finally got her flat recently. The only problem is the price of her 4-room flat has risen so much that the price that she is paying now would have gotten her a 5-room flat two years ago. Incidentally, the increase was $100k. She is sulking now, but I told her two years from now, she would look back and say, “What a steal!”
Having said that, I now wonder what would happen by the time my children need their flats. Would they be priced out of their reach? Am I going to be stuck with them in my HDB flat?

Shanghai Triad

I watched ‘Shanghai Triad’ while my children played bowling yesterday. I liked the refreshing way the story was told – from the viewpoint of a 14-year old pumpkin. The story revolved around Jinbao (Gong Li) and how she was caught in the feud of two gangsters.
The director did not show Jinbao’s childhood but through clever interplay between her and a little girl called Ah Jiao, we could see Jinbao’s childhood almost as vividly in Ah Jiao’s image.
What made Zhang Yimou’s movie outstanding was the way he reviewed the twist in the story. The climax came when you least expected it. He did it again here but I am not going to spoil your fun by spilling the beans.
Gangsters never stop wanting to hurt each other. In a scene, a gangster was going to die; he said this to his enemy to sow discord, “If you could plant your man in mine, what make you think I did not do the same to you.”
In a typical HK film, this is probably another twist in the story. Thankfully, it was not, otherwise the story would be less credible.
My children came back very indignant. They learned that the drain in the bowling alley was called gutter not what I told them: loong gout.

#15 Creative Commons

Very often we need to find

• music to accompany videos that we have made.
• source code to implement standard functions such as calendar, sorting, editing, etc.
• photos/maps for illustrations.

There is no point re-inventing the wheel. It is better to leverage on the wisdom of others and at the same time respecting their rights. But how to do it legally and with minimum hassle? Creative Commons allows us to search for creative works and their associated rights. We just have to be careful with the rights that they reserved and not transgress them.
The work's rights are coded in cryptic short form like by-nc-sa. Wikipedia has detail descriptions for them. The above music clip is from the public domain so I should be able to use it but not make money out of it.
Check out this YouTube clip on Creative Commons.

CJ7

I watched CJ7 on DVD yesterday to relax. I was not disappointed. If you advise a typical youth in affluence Singapore, "You must work hard." He could understand it intellectually but it is like telling a man living besides a huge lake to save water. The message is lost. He lacks the drive to put the knowledge to practice.
To the movie character, Dicky, in CJ7, his understanding went beyond intellectual, he knew it in totality. He would go hungry the moment his father stopped working. His frustration was he didn't have the means to break out of the vicious cycle.
It may be too much to ask our children to live in poverty in order learn a lesson in life. Perhaps, that is why MOE is promoting service learning.

Repartee

My pastor related the following story this Christmas:
One day, somebody wrote this on a wall, "Jesus is the answer."
The next day, another line was added below the first, "But what was the question?"

This reminded me of an article I read in the papers recently. A certain local university canteen has a sign that reads "Conserve Energy". The problem was the lights at the canteen were switched on brightly at about 9 pm when there was hardly anyone around. This prompted somebody to post a self-contradicting picture and asked sarcastically, "What are the lights for?"
Then came the reply, "This is so that you can read the sign."

#14 Technorati

The above picture is a real Technorati Favorites button. Click on it only if you know what you are doing.
Technorati is a blogosphere search engine. When we come across blogs or websites that we like and they have the put Technorati favourite button, we can click on it and the sites will be added into our favourite in Technorati as long as we have an account with Technorati.
We can link our blogs to Technorati so that when we create new posts, our labels will be sent to Technorati to be used for keyword search. This will make our blog searchable.

#13 Del.icio.us

Thing #13 Create a blog post about your experiences with Del.icio.us
I like the Del.icio.us gadget so much that I am putting it as a permanent fixture on my blog. It is a database of personalized bookmarks on the Web and it works by using tags. Being Web based means that it is independent of computer and browser. Besides the usual bookmarking feature, I will use it to share what I found. For example, if you type 'youtube' in its text box, it will show you some of the YouTube clips that I have tagged because I had enjoyed them and I would like to share them with you.
The picture on the right show two such videos, namely, The Mom Song and The Lost Generation. I have added other tags such as NP, cisco, library freeware and church. More information can be found in the Del.icio.us website.

I want to be young again!

A student of mine wrote me the following e-mail after she had discovered that I was blogging:

Hello Mr Low,
wah! blogging sia.
very good.
now i got one more blog to stalk, haha.
must update regularly ok.
((:
take care and see you around!
hehe

Her e-mail made my day for I felt very encouraged. I also envied her writing style. I could never write like that, so high in spirit and full of youthfulness. Just interacting with the youth made me felt young at heart.
That reminded me of another Thank You note that I received some time back. I liked it so much that I re-used it wholesale (with her knowledge) in the ECE MAG 2008.

To Mr Low!
Yo!!! Thank you everything that you have planned for us. Max out oh! Haha.

My paraphrase:

Recently, I received a thank you letter from a student. She ended the note with these words, “Max out oh! Haha.” I liked it for it summed up the vitality of your generation. As much it was for me, now I said it to you, “Max out oh! Haha.”

Genting -- Day 3

Click on here for more pictures.
17 Dec '08
The next morning, we visited the theme park. Along the way, I met a church friend. He told me that he learnt that I was in Genting from my blog and he had also planned a holiday in Genting during the same time. He was on the lookout for me. Wow! The power of blogs.
Among the many rides, I liked the bumer boat the best; it gave me some sense of control. We played tag team, my wife and I against the two boys. My children like Super Toboggan for the adrenalin it produced.
We chose to stay in Awana Hotel because of the peace, quiet and greenery that it offered. It is supposed to have a lot of tracking trails. However, all tracking must be guided due to the nearby golf course. They do not want people to wander into the flight of the golf ball.

#12: My Rollyo Search Roll

Select Search Engine...Reference SearchInternetworkingHome RepairTechnoratiSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

Rollyo is a personalized search engine that searches where you want it to look for data. General search engine like Google searches everywhere and usually end up with a lot of unwanted data. For example, if you want to look up only encyclopedias, you can select 'Reference Search' to limit the scope of search to include wikipedia.org, answers.com, encyclopedia.com, dictionary, reference.com, infoplease.com, refdesk.com, about.com, britannica.com
http://www.rollyo.com/lowcheekin

#11b Ning Network

Week 5, Thing #11b. Join a ning network
I joined the Computer Forensic Networking Portal in the ning social network. There are altogether four of us. It was disappointing as it is a ’dead’ forum. Nobody has posted anything yet and I had just started the ball rolling, wish me luck.

#11a Web 2.0 Awards

Week 5, Thing #11a. Write a blog post about your favorite site from the Web 2.0 Awards
Web 2.0 Awards is a list of websites put under different categories and ranked according to their popularity. If you are interested in making cakes, you can look under the food category and it would show you related websites by the ratings. I don’t look for favorite site here. I come here for new ideas or general trends. For example, Online Desktop, is a new and powerful concept that can change the way we use computers. Instead of checking out each and every one website, Web 2.0 Awards gives its recommendations. This can potentially save you a lot of time.
I found this one via Web 2.0 Awards: Global Hosted Operating System (GHOST)

Genting -- Day 2

16 Dec ‘08
The first available coach to Skyway Genting from Sentral Station is 2pm, so we tried our luck at Pasar Raya. We managed to get tickets for the 1030 coach. The journey of 51km took about an hour and then another 8-minute shuttle service to reach Awana Genting Highlands Hotel. Our rooms were not ready as they had full bookings the day before and their room service was not able to cope. They let us in at 1pm even though the rooms were still not cleaned. I was grateful anyway; at least we have a place to wash up. I was knocked out cold while my children expend their energy playing squash.

The evening was spent at Genting City of Entertainment where the casino is. We took the Skytrain which was reputed to be the fastest in the world and longest in S-E Asia. I am very thankful to SH's cousin who showed us around and accorded us hospitality worthy of VIPs. I learnt from her that Mr Lim Goh Tong started Genting at the ripe old age of 57. He succeeded in building an empire despite all the odds.

We watched Dreamz, a magic show with wafer thin story line of fighting for the affection of a princess. Laser and fireworks made up for the lack of depth. This is the first time I saw a white lion and big animal show without cage. BTW, the white lion is not an albino. White lions are very rare in wild for they are highly visible both to the prey and the hunters.

#10 Online Image generator

Week 5 Thing #10. Play around with an online image generator.

My daughter’s creation making front page news and she was named "Woman of the Year". Dream on ...

This spoof is created at fototrix.

In this time and age, all pictures that we see are only as reliable as the source. Just like fake flowers can look so real, fake pictures are even more difficult to identify.

Genting -- Day 1

15 Dec ‘08
Night train: Tanjong Pagar to KL Sentral Station
Time: 10pm to 6:30am (that is eight and the half hours compared with 6 hours by car but you get to lie horizontal)
Type: Superior Night Class (sleeping)
Cost: Upper deck – S$38
Lower deck – S$43
Children – S$30

When choosing your seat, always request for one near the central of the carriage. The toilets are situated in-between carriages; their usage is a constant source of irritation for people sleeping near them. When taking the train, the white card is your only proof that you entered Malaysia legally for they do not stamp your passport.
Normally, one clears Singapore immigration before one can go to another country. The process is reversed when one takes the train. When one checks into the train, one ‘enters’ Malaysia. The train then takes you to Woodlands Immigration which then records that you are leaving Singapore.
As the train is air-con, it can be quite cold at night, no blanket is provided so wear warmly, e.g., socks and sweater. If you are sensitive to light, bring your blinker along because stray light do get in as the train moves even with the curtain pulled down.
In my drowsiness, I heard a young man shouting repeatedly, ”koropo, koropo.” I thought he was selling snacks and ignored him. Only much later, did I realized that he was saying kelompur for Kuala Lumpur.

Internet Time Budget

Flickr picture by TomLA
Song Sing asked me how long I took to write the Kelong article. I am not a natural writer and it took me three hours just to write the draft and another hour to tidy and put it up on the blog. I started writing the draft after my children went to bed at about nine plus and I did not stop until past midnight.
This is way beyond my Internet time budget of 1 hr/day but it is worth it because it consolidated my learning and brought joy to many people. I was on the phone with my father and was pleasantly surprised to hear from him that he enjoyed the kelong photos on the Internet. My parents are computer illiterate and they stayed with my brother. I had informed my brother about my blog earlier and he shared it with my parents.

Genting Holiday

I am going to Awana Genting from 15 to 19th Dec '08 for holiday. Yippee!!! My family will take a night train to KL and then by coach for another 51 km to our destination.

Times have changed

Some time ago, I was conducting a Bible Study lesson for a group of P2 students. I told them that I was going to tell them an adult story. You could see the excitement in their faces. I began, “The story came from a book called “Among Equals”. It was about three young men vying to be the country Prime Minister. One is poor, another middle class and the third came from a very wealthy family. How many Prime Minister are there in a country?”
They replied, almost in unison,”One!”
“To cut the story short, I will drop one of them and focus on just two young men.”
Before I could continue, they interrupted incessantly, “Which one? Which one?”
Now, that was where I exercised my discretion and creativity. I enjoyed such moment of control. Which one …? In the back of my mind, I said to myself, “Most of us would root for the underdog.” So, I said, “The middle class one.”
The reaction was totally unexpected – many protested and some even showed signs that they were not keen to follow the story anymore. When I reflected over it, I realized times have changed. The profiles of my students have also changed. Many of my students are from the middle class and they knew it. Their fathers are doctors, managers or accountants. They identified with a different hero then this son of a taxi driver.

Flow of Qi

I was at the Science Café on 11th Dec ’08, attending a talk entitled “Flow of Qi”. After a short introduction, they tried to show us two video presentations. The first video completed its run after much difficulty. However, they could not get the second video going.
I felt that the presenter from xxx country was being ungracious when he commented that the Science Centre needed some technical backup. After all, they are the ones who brought in the DVD. The presentation was not a one-man show, out of the entire team; they must have a laptop that can run their stuff. It was also the presenter’s responsibility to test out the equipment before the actual event.
This is a sober reminder to myself not to make the same mistake.
A take away from the talk is Taiwan's new vision -- moving away from "Made in Taiwan" to "Created in Taiwan". The battlefield has always been in the minds but now more intense than ever.

#9 Blog on RSS Feed

Thing 9. Write 2 blog posts - one each on the 2 relevant RSS feeds that you found.

Most bloggers update their blogs irregularly. Hence, it is tedious to check for new postings. Google Reader solves this problem for me. It is like a ringing telephone telling me when there are new things coming.
I follow Coleman's blog using Google Reader. I like the blog because it contains many new, thought-provoking and sometimes controversial ideas and viewpoints from a young technologist who is very much in touch with the real world out there.
BTW, Coleman is a former NP staff.
I also keep track of Cheriboy's blog. He is my fellow Learning 2.0 course mate. during the mid-course get-together he show me how to add gadgets to my blog, his blog and how to follow each other blogs. In any race, it is good to have a pacing partner, especially one who can run a little faster than yourself.

#7b Flickr and my students

Thing 7b. Write a blog post on how you will use Flickr with your students.
In any sizeable event, no one person can cover everything. Assigning 'reporters' and photographers is one thing. How to get their findings together is where Flickr and Blog can help.
The kelong trip is one such example. The blog contains web photo album links to my friends’ and my own. This is the way to go for my upcoming ECE FOC ’09 event coverage.

Sibu kelong 7-8 Dec ‘08

More related links:
Chee Kin's Picasa
Peng Guan's Flickr
Joe's Blog.

I had a very fruitful trip, thank you Kee Long, Joe and ASU for organizing it. We left for Ah Yew Kelong at 8:00am from NP and managed to reach the kelong for late lunch. From 2 to 5:30pm, there was not much catch putting our ‘Kuning Party’ in jeopardy. Things started to change for the better after dinner. The fish came in school. Unfortunately, with so many lines in the water at the same time, we spent more time disentangling than actually fishing.

At about 9pm, we have supper which looked very plain to me – soupy white noodle and red bean soup. I thought my children would run away at the sight of it. Surprisingly, my eldest son who is known to be a fussy eater had second helpings. I also went for more.

The night snack was a ‘Kuning Party’ made possible from the generous contributions form everybody’s catch. We had 5 squids (yummy thanks to Joe) and hundreds of small Kuning and Selar. I under estimated our group appetite. By the time, I reached the table, all the squids were gone. I have only two pieces of Kuning fish. Just as I was about to leave, 10-year old Matthew Wong came to me and gave me a small piece of squid. I was very touched by him for the squid was very delicious and he could have popped it right into his mouth. I shared it with my brother and his wife. They were very impressed with the squid and the boy’s behavior. I proudly told them I was his Sunday school teacher when he was P2.

The next morning, it rained dogs and cats so the trip to Sibu Island was cancelled. Some continue to fish in pouring rain while others stayed in-door reading or playing cards. Soon, it was time to go home after lunch. As our group was very large, three separate boat trips were needed to ferry us back to the main land. My family was in the first group, unfortunately, at the last minute, one of my sons was asked to join another group. My eldest son volunteered to stay behind.

As I turned back, I saw a forlorn figure, I felt very sad and helpless. Just then, my good friend, Lee Kin, called out to my son and invited him to join her family. I was so glad that Lee Kin provided him with a ‘foster family’ to cheer and support him at a time like this.

Lessons learnt
1. December is the monsoon season, I knew it and yet I did not prepare for it. I did not give my children wind breakers to wear for the ferry trip. It was a big mistake. My eldest son was soaking wet and shriveling from the cold. I have Peh Lian Huay to thank for; she shielded my son with her jacket.
2. I suffer motion sickness all my life and I did nothing to prepare for it. I paid the price by contributing my ingested lunch to the sea. I resolved to commit to memory this: Take Novomin half an hour before any long journey and avoid coffee.
3. Wear rubber shoe for wet event for they dry more easily.
4. Bring a big raincoat that can cover the legs so as to be able to fish like Song Sing. I really admire his tenacity and strength, fishing in pouring rain. He got to enjoy the whole sea for himself with nobody to cross line with.
5. Go to the kelong with a humble heart; do not set the KPI (Key Performance Indicator) too high.
6. A big fish took my bait, hook, line and sinker right underneath the kelong. The fishing rod was bent like the letter ‘C’. I learnt that the rod was not stiff enough to control a fish like that.
7. The bait for Selar is whitish green feather. Click here for more fishing tips.

BTW, another surprise – no traffic jam at the Second Link on the way there and back.

#6 Green Celebrations

Click here for more photos.
Week 3, Thing 6: A photo taken outside NP.
NP@45 Green Celebrations at Marina Barrage on Fri, 28 Nov 08. The highlight of the evening was a lucky draw. The entry form is a quiz based on the exhibits. I could not believe it when my name was called. The emcee said it was a candle light dinner for two but the actual 'prize'? two cup noodle and two small candles.

Other prizes were also creatively named: 3D2N cruise to nowhere -- a swimming float! The top prize is a complete home entertainment system; a pack of playing cards is what you get!

#3b My feelings about blogs

Thing #3b. Write a post indicating your feelings about blogs.
Before I started blogging, I thought it was a waste of time and it was for not me, at least not my generation. Blogging requires one to record interesting activities that one experiences. As I blog, I feel that I am more aware of my environment as I want to leave meaningful 'footprint' on my blog. I like this feeling -- a feeling that I am more alive.

Previously, I also don't like to lug a camera around, finding it a burden. But I have since changed. Camera is an excellent tool to record what one sees and it also opens one's eye to what is happening around us.

I am slow in recognizing the usefulness and power of blogging. I now believe blogging is going to be like what e-mail was to us once upon a time. We didn't need e-mail not too long ago but now we cannot do without it.

The future employer is going to ask to see his potential employee's blog. The blog or the lack of it tells a lot about the person.

#7a Technology to behold

Thing 7a. Write a blog post on some technology of interest
I always take pride that the NSS lab is fully equiped with real routers and switches. Our students get to work on real equipment. However, recent development in the simulation technology has changed the learning landscape forever. With the latest Packet Tracer 5.0, a freeware from Cisco System, students can do their experiments anytime and anywhere. They can also do things that they cannot do with the real thing, for example, packets that are generated within the router and discarded by the same router. On the real router, there is nothing to see. On the other hand, the simulator displayed such packets marked with a cross. It has, in fact, become the platform of choice for our students.

Packet Tracer 5.0 also supports multi-user . It came with multi-player platform like the "King of the Hill" game where multiple players contest to reach the top of the hill first. They moved simultaneously toward the target by solving puzzles and their movement can be seen in real time adding to the excitement of the game.

The captured figure is also a good example of Watermarking Technology. If you look closely, you will see the words "Packet Tracer 5.0 Beta" dotted all over. They do not intrude the user's vision and shows the ownership subtly.

NPASU Kelong Trip (Dec '08)

Kelong near Pulau Sibu Island (Malaysia)

We are going to this kelong near Pulau Sibu (Malaysia) this coming Sunday, 7 Dec 2008, under the NP Academic Staff Union (NPASU). December is in the midst of the monsoon season, the water is choppy but the harvest at the kelong will be good as fishes seek out shelter.
At the kelong, I always enjoy standing behind my children watching them reel in the fish. Without fail, they will break into a smile when they bring in the fish. Their joy is my happiness.