Bought a 5x5x5 Rubik's cube a few days ago. "Professor cube" as they call it. Solving it is just like the normal 3x3x3 Rubik's cube with a few steps in front to make the 5x5x5 look like a 3x3x3 (namely, grouping the centres, grouping the sides and solving parity errors). After playing my cube for a few days, I was so full of myself that I decided to try a 7x7x7 cube! Of course I don't think I can find a real 7x7x7 cube in stores so easily, so I used a programme GabbaSoft Cube to simulate one.



This is after 46 minutes of work trying to group all the centres together! I spent more than half an hour trying to group the last 2 centres because there were 25 squares for each centre and it was very hard to manoeuvre them around.



A few minutes later... hey now there is some pattern there already!



Aha! Now this looks like a 3x3x3 cube. No parity errors to fix... lucky me.



About 4 minutes later, I have successfully solved a 7x7x7 cube! Took me more than an hour to do that, because about half the time was spent trying to figure out how to solve the last 2 centres.



Playing around with the cube after some 1 hour of cube-solving.



Checkerboard! This can only be done on cubes with odd number of sides (3, 5, 7, etc).



I need to solve more cubes like that (or even bigger sizes) to help pass time. Otherwise it will be so boring during these holidays. Luckily GabbaSoft Cube allows up to 20x20x20. *toothy grin*

Right. I am beat already.

We make new friends very often. We make friends every time we move to a new class. We make friends every time we join a new CCA. We make friends every time you shift to a new workplace. They are important to our lives as they are able to help us with many things. When we fall behind on studies, we have our friends in class to help us catch up. When we are feeling down and need someone to talk to, our friends are always available. When we are stuck at home during the holidays having nothing to do, friends are there to hang out with.

Unfortunately, friends are not as permanent as siblings. They do drift away because of constraints. For example, I had made many friends in primary school, but because we were all posted to different secondary schools, I started to chat with them less. I have even lost contact with some of them. When I mentioned this to others, they sympathized with me. They believed that it is sometimes quite painful to lose contact with someone whom you have shared some happy memories with. However, I disagree to some extent. The reason why they drift away is because we have found new friends to mix around with. Furthermore, such a process is very gradual, over a couple of years, sometimes longer, and so you will not feel much about it.

I have a friend who has just been shifted to another institution. Within a month, he seems to neglect his friends from his former institution. When I asked him to go out with me, he told me that he is going with his new friends instead. This saddens me. This is not just a case of "drifting away"; to me it seems more like "teleportation". One part of me feels happy for him for making new friends, but the other stronger part of me feels sad as this forces us to be further apart. Perhaps one reason I may feel this way is because I currently do not belong to any institution and hence still remember about friends in my former institution.

As far as I do not want to contradict myself, I find that if I were to put myself in his shoes, I will find myself having to make a tough decision. It is like forgoing either the past or the future. But for me, I will choose the latter. In the state of excitement, you want to know more about your new friends and want to go out more often with them, but there are still many chances in the future to do that. Once you forgo the past, it is very hard to make up for it. Once you choose it, and regret it later on, you can only learn from your mistake and make sure you do not make the same mistake again. The more mundane choice has a better advantage in the long run.

Went for 6A1'03 reunion on Thursday and Friday. It was quite a success as more than half the class was there with almost equal number of boys and girls. Even "The Neo" was there, who came at night after she smsed Isaac saying she will be coming "after 1900 hours". It's the first class gathering after 4 years but we managed to get a lot of people there. Could have been more fun if more people were there.

Recognise everyone except Weize! He has seriously changed a lot haha. But hey, at least I am not someone who could not recognise most people... shall not mention who but it should be pretty obvious already. Even though most of us have not met each other for pretty long already, we were chatting and playing with each other normally like we were still in the same class. It didn't feel awkward to start a conversation with them at all, unlike how I had anticipated.

Interrogated Miss Neo about her boyfriend but she kept denying having one. Watched 2 movies: Tarzan (cartoon) and Sleepy Hollow. Samson fell asleep during both movies haha. But Robyn should have brought scarier movies to watch. Tried to sleep in the room, which was just big enough to fit 2 beds and 2 roller beds, with 7 other people, but ended up watching them sleep instead. Some others went to watch sunrise at Pasir Ris Park but the sun rose behind them and was blocked by trees. Surprisingly, they managed to influence some strangers to watch with them, only to leave both groups disappointed haha.

The reunion was quite successful in my opinion. Like what Javier said, everyone enjoyed themselves. I hope we can meet again occasionally. Must thank Isaac for planning this reunion.

Chris Adamson, an editor at O'Reilly Books in California recommends thinking of devices as having a short life span, say three to four years.

"If it fails after that period, accept that you've gotten your value out of it and get something new"

- The Straits Times, Digital Life, 20/11/07 Page 12.


Maybe I should get a new computer or something. I am booting my computer in safe mode now, and now I think it's using 256 colours, which is worst than how I expected my computer to load this morning (also in safe mode).

It just feels like I am living in the late 20th century. Even the Windows 95 icons are much prettier than my current icons. Since when did you last see a cylinder icon as your recycle bin?! [Just a side note, I have two recycle bins - one of them is a fake.]

And I am really using Live Messenger (version 8.1). The icon at the notification area makes it as if I am using Windows Messenger which is some half a dozen years ago kinda thing.

The chances of a successful bootup of my computer is roughly 20% even if I try to boot in safe mode. There is nothing much I can do about it except to keep waiting and waiting... and waiting.

Does anyone have a boot disc for Windows XP (Home Edition)?

4 banned commercials: Expressen (Sweden newspaper), Companhia Athletica, BC and Time Foto. Very funny!!

[link]

Wanted to post last night, but was too tired because of my lack of sleep due to Friday's PAE briefing. Fell asleep at 9+ and woke up at 8 this morning, which is so early for me. The PAE briefing yesterday was a waste of time. They held us up for more than 1 hour just to pass us a booklet, a form, and to let us confirm our testimonials.

Because of some extreme luck, I was able to score 6 points for my Prelims L1R5 (without 2 bonus points from CCA), otherwise I would actually have scored 8. The cut-off point for VJC last year was 5, so I guess I will be able to make it to VJC for the first 2 months, because I will also get another 2 bonus points from affiliation (making my L1R5 2).

For the purpose of this post, let's simplify things such that there is only 1 course type (Science course); there are only 3 JCs: RJC (with cut-off point of 3), VJC (with cut-off point of 5) and TJC (with cut-off point of 6); and everybody gets 2 bonus points from CCA. I will be considering both PAE (using Prelim results to get into JCs) and JAE (using 'O' level results to get into JCs).

The bonus points are computed as follows:
1) First Languages: 2 bonus points if both English and Higher Mother Tongue score A1 to C6 (inclusive).
2) CCA: 2 bonus points if CCA scores A1 or A2, 1 bonus point if CCA scores B3 to C6 (inclusive).
3) Affiliation/Loyalty: 2 bonus points for the 1st choice only, if

a) affiliated JC is chosen as 1st choice; or

b) (during JAE only) the same school as the school they were admitted in during PAE, is chosen as the first choice; or

c) both.

[max 4 points from (1), (2) and (3)]

A bit confusing, but if I were to choose VJC as first choice I will get 2 bonus points each from (2) and (3a). If I were to, instead, choose RJC as first choice and VJC as second, then I will only get 2 bonus points from (2), and will not get any bonus from (3) at all because I did not choose VJC as first choice, nor is RJC an affiliated school to VS.

For all who are wondering, I don't take Higher Chinese. I wasn't even offered that subject in the first place. This is totally unfair. I scored B3 for my 'O' level Chinese, and it is not as if there aren't people who take Higher Chinese but score a miserable B3 for their 'O' level Chinese. If I were offered Higher Chinese, I may already have gotten my 2 additional bonus points already, given that I pass my Higher Chinese during my Prelims. I may have at least tried getting my additional 2 bonus points, but I was never given the chance to. And the worst of all is that the number of bonus points is 2, not 1. Every bonus point in the L1R5 is very critical in determining whether anyone can get into a JC of their choice.

There are other factors which are unfair, such as not giving credit for those who did extremely well in a particular subject or CCA, but I shall not elaborate into them.

Anyway, there are some people (in VS) who are very smart. They want to go, and can get into VJC, but in order to play safe, they decide to go TJC for the first 2 months. They claim that if they get into VJC for the first 2 months, they are 'wasting' bonus points! This is what they imagine it as: Person A (who did not take Higher Mother Tongue) scored very well for his Prelims and got into TJC. When his 'O' level result was announced, he realised he scored 10. Now, he may be able to make it to TJC through the JAE. This is because he can get 2 bonus points each from (2) and (3b), bringing his L1R5 down to 6. This may (just nice) grant him entrance to TJC. He cannot make it to VJC though, even if he uses all his bonus points from (2) and (3c), because the cut-off point for VJC is 5. He is still short of 1 point. However, if he had gotten into VJC for the first 2 months, he cannot get into VJC again as he is short of 1 point still. Now here's the mathematics: he cannot get into TJC as well, because he can only enjoy a maximum of 2 bonus points (from (2)), which makes his L1R5 8 - short of 2 points!

Right. Here's where their mathematics ends. We imagine there is this Person B who is even smarter than Person A. He has the same mentality as Person A, and got into TJC for the first 2 months. Now, when he got back his result for 'O' level, he realised he scored an amazing 6 points! Wow! Now he can go anywhere. This is the drawback: if he choose to go VJC, his teachers change, his class changes, the environment changes. He is so used to the environment in TJC that he does not want to leave. His teachers are recommending him to stay in TJC. His seniors and friends from TJC are all bugging him to stay. So where does he go to now? VJC is a better institution (by rank). By staying in TJC, he is depriving himself the opportunity to study in a better school. But he has already made many friends in TJC. Now he is at a cross-road... smart!

There is another group of people in VS who is stuck between RJC and VJC. They claim that they stand a higher chance getting into RJC if they choose RJC as their first choice for the PAE. Then if they do well for 'O' levels, they can again choose RJC as their first choice again and stand a better chance getting in there (4 bonus points probably). Now, let's imagine an unlucky Person X who got into RJC for the first 2 months. When he received his 'O' level result, he realised he scored 7 (and failed his Higher Chinese) for his L1R5. Unable to use his Higher Mother Tongue results for all his choices, he chooses RJC as first choice and VJC as second choice. He will get 4 bonus points for his first choice ((2) and (3b)) and only 2 bonus points for his second choice (the CCA bonus points (2)). So he will be competing against the COP of the respective JCs. But have you ever heard of partial 3 and partial 5? The cut-off point for RJC is 3, but it doesn't mean ALL 3-pointers will get into that JC - only some will. So what if Person X is so unlucky that he is one of those who does not get chosen into RJC (partial 3), as well as VJC (partial 5)? Poor guy.

Now what if the same Person X now decides to choose VJC as his first choice during the JAE? Well, remember Person B I was talking about? This Person X is even worse than him. He is now forced to transfer into a lower-ranking institution because of his score. Well, it's not easy to score 6, you know?

Now we have a Person S who knows what he is doing. He chooses VJC as his first choice for PAE and because he is doing to do so well for his 'O' levels, he can easily choose VJC again during the JAE. Plus he gets to enjoy 2 additional bonus points from the whole of (3). This will leave him with no headaches at all as to which JC to go to. One short and simple choice - VJC. I urge all readers to follow this person S who does not have to worry so much as compared to Persons B and X.

Oh and did I tell you that my name also starts with 'S'?

'O' level is over. I did not feel today was different except that today was more tiring, mainly because my mother just went to Hong Kong yesterday, leaving me as the only person at home. So I have to do all the household chores. And the thing is I just noticed one of the water pipes is partially blocked. Water was flowing at a much reduced pace. Guess what I saw: black colour stuffs which stank like hell. Tried to remove them but gave up halfway because there were just too much. Nah I will just wait for my mother to return. Lazy.

'O' level has finished. I was wondering why so many people were unusually delighted when Mr Wong announced that we were allowed to leave. Some even tore up their entry proof (Mr Wong expected it and told us not to tear up our entry proof and litter in the hall)! Perhaps it was because they put in so much effort into studying for the exams that they were seriously pressurized by it. When 'O' level ends, their pressure is suddenly released, like if you poke a hole into the chamber manufacturing ammonia (it's of 250 times the normal atmospheric pressure), or when your are having gastric pain because you did not eat and you suddenly let a long long fart. Ahhh. For me, I did not really feel anything special mainly because I did not spend much efforts into studying. It also seems like what I will be doing for the rest of the holidays will be the same as what I have been doing these few days - staying online until wee hours, and waking up so late that my first meal of the day is even later than other people's second meal. Maybe I can finally embark on what I want to do after 'O' level, which includes going out more often rather than being cooped up at home.

'O' level has ended. Imagine someone who has no purpose in life just because 'O' level has ended. Before and during 'O' levels, we all say that he has no life because he keeps on studying. But it is after 'O' level when he has no life, because he has nothing to study already. It just seems like he has no purpose in life. Hahahaha. This is said by Neng Wei about Shamir by the way. I find it very funny when he said Shamir has "no purpose in life". It is like someone walking around in the streets alone, doing nothing. And Neng Wei told us that Shamir would usually chase after the bus but today, he did not chase, probably because he has too much free time. Neng Wei even suggested that I introduce Shamir o2jam!

'O' level is gone. Because of this, other people are feeling extremely high and I am taking advantage of that. For instance, I went to Neng Wei's house to play and slack around! Haha. Stayed there for more than 6 hours. Played a lot of o2jam, a bit of FIFA and watched Neng Wei getting thrashed by Sean in DotA. Exam ended in the morning but I only reached home at night. Indeed a long and tiring day.

'O' level has past. Anyone noted the irony here? Throughout this post I kept mentioning that I am not bothered by the fact that 'O' level is over. But in every first sentence of each paragraph I mentioned that it is over. So indeed I am quite happy that 'O' level is over, but actually not so happy as to "tear away my entry proof into pieces" or "sms-ing/blogging to announce to the whole world that 'O' level is over". I will just declare a break.

'O' levels is over... not! I still have 2 MCQ papers left, Physics and Chemistry on the 12th [there is a rumour that there is one more on the 13th but I cannot remember what that is ;)]. Okay just kidding. 3 MCQ papers left, including a Biology one on 13th. It is quite awkward as the MCQ papers are taken after the main papers. I have no idea how much I should study for them since I always score quite high for them (read: the Physics and Chemistry MCQs). In fact, there are many people out there who are more confident than me and have already declared that 'O' levels is over.

The only subject that I am most worried about is my Combined Humanities (Geography Elective). Let's talk about Geography Elective first. I scored a whooping 9½/10 for the Map Reading section for prelims. But for 'O' levels I think I only score a maximum of 7. There were 3 parts to the question. The first one asked for the distance between 2 points. Because the distance was 20+ cm, and my ruler could only measure up to 15cm, I could not draw a straight line across to measure the distance. Neither did I think as imba-ly as Wei Liang to use the edge of the paper to mark out the distance on the map. So I had to resort to using something that is useful in desperate situations: the Pythagoras Theorem! I found the horizontal and vertical length because they gave us the grid reference anyway, and silly me put a 21.42 cm as the distance on the map, after which I multiply by the scale to get my actual distance. Did you spot anything wrong with it? No? Let me give you a hint: can your ruler measure twenty-one point FOUR TWO centimetres? Or is yours a vernier caliper? The second part was a difficult one because it asked for something which I did not study for. So I just wrote some 4 one-sentence paragraphs as my answer. I could not really complete the third part because I could not find many features on the map which "serve communication well".

The second question was on Agriculture, which I hope to score well (this question is probably my only chance of scoring well; read below).

There were choices for the third question. Because I totally banged onto Environment and did not even read through Development and Tourism in the textbook, I had to attempt the most difficult question among the three choices. There was this 8-mark part question asking to explain the differences between renewable and non-renewable resources. And that was the first part of the Environment chapter, and well, I took it as the introduction part so I totally ignored it. Instead, I studied the more interesting (*raises eyebrows*) parts like Deforestation, Pollution, Desertification, Global Warming, Depleted Fish Stocks and Ozone Depletion. If it were a 2-mark question I think I would have scored quite well for the question.

Lesson learnt: ALWAYS study a backup chapter!

Social Studies (SS) was worse. Now, for the syllabus I studied for SS, there are 6 themes. 1 theme will come out for Source-based Questions (SBQ) (which do not require studying of the textbook) and 3 other different themes will come out for Structured-essay Questions (SEQ) (which requires hardcore mugging of the stupid textbooks). So we are only concerned about the SEQ section and not about the SBQ. The safest way is to study 4 themes so that no matter which 3 themes come out for SEQ, there will always be at least 1 theme that will be tested from what you have studied. Of course, if you study 3 themes, there is a very small (in fact, 5%) chance that THE OTHER THREE themes would come out for SEQ. Some people may disagree and say that it is better to study all 6, so that you can choose the easiest question out of the three. But I will tell you angrily to reserve your brain space for other more meaningful stuffs. Now let us just assume that Merger/Seperation of Singapore from Malaysia (one of the themes) will not come out. That was what I assumed, and Merger/Separation really did not come out! In fact, all the SEQ was from the secondary 4 textbook only! So if you study 2 themes, out of the 5 themes left, for the SEQ, there is a 90% chance that one of the themes you have studied would come out. Well, I thought 90% was quite high so I decided to take the risk, and...

Lesson learnt: If you were to decide whether to take a risk such that there is a 90% success, NEVER TAKE IT!!!!

(Actually, if you were to count Merger/Separation in, the chances of having one question coming out from the 2 themes you have studied would be 80%. In that case, DO NOT TAKE A 80% CHANCE RISK!)

Ah well ah well, when I realised the horror, I calmed myself down. I told myself it's only an 'O' level examination. No big deal. So I spent more time thinking through the SBQ instead. As for the SEQ, I still spent much time recalling the points so I did not really complete them.


Here are my predictions for my 'O' level examinations (I sound as if 'O' levels has ended already):

English - A2
E-maths - A1
A-maths - A1
Physics - A1
Chemistry - A1
Biology - A2
Combined Humanities - B3 (I hope!!)

and together with Chinese (B3 for mid years), I think my L1R5 will be around 9. That is around the same as my L1R5 for prelims except that when you look at my prelims score, you need to tilt your head 180 degrees to see my 'O' level score.


Now about the dancer in the last post, it is simply a 2D image of a dancer swivelling horizontally. The shadow of the legs (towards the bottom of the picture) seems to imply that the dancer is rotating counter-clockwise, because when her right leg is towards the background, there is a shadow on the ground, and when her right leg reaches the foreground, the shadow disappears from view. If the dancer is rotating clockwise, the shadow seen when her right leg is in the foreground must be seen when her right leg appears in the background too, but clearly it isn't.

However, to me it just seems like the motion fits more of clockwise than counter-clockwise. When she appears to be rotating counter-clockwise, it seems like she is going to fall any time (but unfortunately she doesn't).

If you can only view it rotating in one direction, what you can do is to tilt your head near 180 degrees (please don't fall off the chair). If you still see it rotating in the same direction, close your eyes for around 5 seconds and look at it again with your head still tilted. Do you see it now?

Oh by the way, the tilting of head is not a prank. That's what I did anyway, and now I can see it rotate both ways (though not simultaneously!). Let's assume you see it rotate clockwise. When you turn your head 180 degrees and look at it upside-down, it should rotate clockwise too (in your upside-down point of view). However, the upside-down point of view is different from the right-way-up point of view, i.e. if you see it rotate clockwise upside down, you should see it rotate counter-clockwise right-way-up. If I want to even play a prank on you, I will go for something more extreme, like... hey, stand up and turn your body counter-clockwise for 10 rounds, then you should see the dancer turn counter-clockwise too! Ha ha!

Is she rotating clockwise or counter-clockwise?

If she's rotating clockwise, you are using more of the right side of your brain. If counter-clockwise, you are using more of the left side.

See if you can reverse the direction of the dancer (more here).


And I am so happy because it's 12 more hours before I am throwing my Social Studies textbooks out of the window!