Native English. Native to where?

Ruby Pan gave a tremendous performance of the various english flavors that one can hear in Singapore. My office mate from Belgium understood up until Singlish started to be spoken. After that, it was "jit the jit the" ("one piece, one piece"). For some reason, I felt rather proud that we Singaporeans have a language that announces our nationality. When one Singaporean talks to another in Singlish, especially overseas, a bond of familiarity and comradery is instantly formed. If the Singapore government insists that our citizens venture abroad, Singlish will be the glue that binds us together. Even more so than char kuey teow. Enjoy!

Cooking Shows

"民以食为天" is one of the most quoted chinese sayings. And the only things that I remember from the 1948 movie adaptation of Oliver Twist are 1. he is an orphan, 2. "Please sir, I want some more" and 3. the song "Food, Glorious Food". Given that this is one of the most shown holiday movies in Singapore, that's how important food is to me. (SBC. TCS. Mediacorp. No matter what name they call themselves, they're still the cheapskate people who won't buy the latest blockbuster movies, just re-show the old cheapo ones.) Is it any surprise that one of my favorite TV channels in the U.S. is Food TV? Imagine: an entire TV network dedicated to food! The only thing missing is an instant delivery service that will bring what they cooked or introduced in various cities and countries to my doorstep. And, in my humble opinion, the best TV chef is Alton Brown. His shows include Good Eats and Feasting on Asphalt. Good Eats is a 30 min show that features a single food item (e.g. chicken, tuna, garlic, and yes, even water!). He introduces the history of the food item, teaches the viewer a few key dishes and most importantly, explains the science of how food is prepared, cooked and eaten. All this in done with a tremendous sense of humor that makes it extremely entertaining and educational. Don't miss it!

2006 Volkswagon Passat

Jia Nin's current car is a 2006 model Volkswagon Passat station wagon. She used to have the 2005 TDI version (diesel engine) but some idiot made an illegal turn and banged into it. She's not very happy with this petrol engine version of the Passat. For one, diesel engines have so much more torque, so you get alot of acceleration, like starting off when the light turns green or overtaking a car at high speed on the highway. Also, it is almost 50% more fuel efficient (20 miles per gallon for the petrol engine, 31 miles per gallon for diesel). With rising gas prices, diesel car is much cheaper to feed! Also, the interior fittings of the current petrol model had large gaps. She had to take it back to the dealer to get the fittings "fitted" properly. Assembled in South America. I'm not saying they make bad cars, but getting one of their bad ones does not give us good opinions of their QC (quality control). All in all, this means she wants to get another car. Since there aren't many diesel cars in the market, she probably has to get a petrol car. Her choice should be a smaller car (VW Jetta? Golf? Rabbit? Mini Cooper?) to get better fuel economy.

Work: 1/3

Almost all of you have been asking what I do at work here in Ann Arbor. Well, the animation in this post is 1/3 of it: Using graphics and animations to illustrate research results and scientific concepts. For example, everyone knows that hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) uses less fuel. But it doesn't work well for large trucks, and I mean those huge semi trucks on US highways. A concept that our research group is working on involves using high pressure hydraulics to act as the hybrid device. Hence the term "Hybrid Hydraulic Vehicle (HHV)". This animation is 3 years old now. The newer and better stuff will have to wait until they are "semi-old" before I can use them for personal stuff on the web. Lots of 3D eye candy ;-). Cutting the research work down to its essence and making attractive, easy to understand pictures/movies for presentations, reports and the internet describes this part of the job. Next time: Computational Fluid Dynamics, or CFD.

2007 Toyota Camry

To save miles on her leased Volkswagon Passat, Jia Nin and I drove a rented Toyota Camry to the PGI event (below mentioned) in Appleton, Wisconsin last Friday. The trip was about 270 miles (435 km) each way, from Stillwater, Minnesota. Roads were a mix of highway and city/town streets. After driving the 2007 Toyota Camry a total of 10 hours, we concluded that we didn't like it. The suspension is too hard, we bounced uncomfortably across the segmented concrete highways. There was a lot of wind noise. At 140 kph, that is to be expected. But the noise at 80 kph was still quite loud. The seats have poor back support. Maybe driving 1 hour across Singapore is fine, but 5 hours in the seat was horrible, even for the passenger (yes, we did take breaks). The interior was spacious with huge trunk space. 2 cups holders only. And only 2 power sockets. One for iPod, one for GPS unit. That's it. That car we rented was the 4-cylinder engine model with just enough power for US highway driving. The automatic transmission was quite smooth so overtaking on the highway with the gears shifting down was not jerky. Fuel economy was pretty good, needing only one stop at the gas station each way. We expected a lot more out of Toyota's saloon-class vehicle line. Maybe next time have to try their luxury-class Avalon.

PGI Fireworks Show

You think watching the National Day fireworks display is exciting? Try watching a fireworks show just 100m from the launch tubes! Jia Nin and I went to this event last Friday. A 5 hour drive from Minnesota to Appleton, Wisconsin. It's the Pyrotechnics Guild International's annual convention. Well, the last day where they have a public showing, the so-called Grand Public Display. This is a choreographed show of the latest fireworks: patterns, colors, combinations. One of the events was the try for a world record by setting off 10.8 million fire crackers continuously! See the movie here. Also, the photo galleries and videos can be found online here. Ear protection is a must!!

Online Reading

Maybe it is a reflection of the modern, fast-moving, multi-tasking digital world. My attention span has been steadily shrinking. These days, I find it hard to read a book for more than 30 minutes continuously. I used to be able to stick to it for 3 to 4 hours, barely moving except to turn the pages. Of course, a good story can still hold my attention but the urge to finish even such a book from cover to cover in one sitting has diminished. (No, I don't think my increasing age has anything to do with it. :-P ) Enter the online writing community. One in particular, 起点中文网 has kept my attention for the past 3 years. Yes, it's in chinese. No, I don't know of any english sites with the sheer variety and volume of writing. Authors post their stories, some complete, but most are added chapter-by-chapter. I've read one that took 3 years to write! This style of story reading, a chapter a day (or one every few days, even a few weeks; some authors are not very proliferic) suits my time constraints and attention span very well: Lunch break, read a few chapters from various stories, then back to work, for example. ps. lots more to write about this, but my attention span has run out :-). until next time...

9391 miles = 15113 km

As the crow flies, that's how far from Singapore I am now. Though if a crow can fly that far, I'm sure mindef would have captured all the bloody birds hanging around the HDB parking lots and used them as "bio-intelligence units".

First Things First

And I was wondering why the emails from my friends and relatives have been dwindling away. Lee Kiang sent me the link to her blog and I started tracking people down with the comments, links and, of course, Google. Lo and behold, there's everyone. I figured I might as well join the club. Hopefully, it won't become a rant-fest with me whining about char kuey teow. "I'm strangely addicted to income." - Lois McMaster Bujold