Friday 30 April 2010



So today I had nothing to do, and was hanging around the living room at home (school day was a bad one; don't want to think about it). Then I went to one of the windows to enjoy the so-called scenery of the back area of the block of flats (I live in 744; the blocks are 745, 743, 747, 745A (carpark). Then orange light caught my eyes.

No, it wasn't the streetlights (It was around 6pm, and the streetlights wouldn't be on, would they?). It was fire from block 743. I thought the guy in the apartment was cooking and doing the style of cooking where you have the flame above the frying pan. I was wrong when I saw the large fire. Stunned for a moment, I remembered a dream I had last year (I could remember because it was somewhat like a nightmare, but I wasn't concerned). It was one of the lower floor apartment, and one of them caught fire because of the stove. But there was nothing on the stove. Just fire, and people running around in circles in that apartment and screaming for help.

But that was just a dream. This time, it was real. Except that there wasn't anyone running in circles, and the fire seem to come from a pan or wok. The flame was emitting black smoke into the air, but luckily it wasn't thick black smoke. That would have been terrible. But there was still fire, and no one could be seen trying to put the fire out. And I heard people under block 743 trying to check whether there was anyone in that apartment by whistling damn loudly (the entire neighbourhood was damn quiet, so I could hear them speak.

Then I shifted view, and forgot to take a video of the rest of the scene. What happen was, according to my mum (I wasn't wearing my specs), a person came to view and attempted to fight the fire. The fire went down, but did not stop. I squinted while watching, and saw the guy perform the final attempt: he took the pan, and flung the pan at the wall. The fire stopped. Easily seen, because if the fire didn't stop, an orange light would appear from the black window and I heard a breaking sound. And I saw the pan with fire on top move, so definitely someone took the pan.

Then after the fire was put out, the SCDF arrived. Then a police motorcycle. And finally a fire engine truck. But the fire was gone. I managed to take photos of their arrival outside my block, along with a video showing the apartment in flames. Too bad I did not manage to take a photo of the person putting the flames out...






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人之命,若无意,何生乎?21:03

Monday 26 April 2010



I have become the chairman of the class again. Damn.

I upgraded my internet browser to safari, too. Much faster (in terms of page loading).

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人之命,若无意,何生乎?21:05

Friday 23 April 2010



Came back from NCC camp on 22nd April. Quite boring, seeing that we only did three activities.

First we entered the NCC campus and were split up into groups. Was already er... scolded for not answering loudly enough. Then went to place my stuff in the bunk and left to fall in at the road. Volunteered to help transfer some bedsheets and other items, and ended up waiting for a few moments before moving the stuff.

At 9am we had the welcome talk from the commander of NCC Sea District (the camp was for cadets from air district).

Had the icebreaker first. Didn't really take part in it. Sabo the IC alot of time. Nth better to do. Played some games.

Then we had rappelling. Done something like this before, so not at all scary. Except my glove had a hole in it. Hand was damn pain. (remember friction)

Then we were supposed to have paintball activity. Then lightning was seen, the alarm sounded, and all outdoor activities were cancelled. No paintball, no obstacle course. Because of the weather. Spent our time in the canteen, with some seniors teaching us some cheer or whatever. But I think we got too noisy, we were forced to have our ears touching the table for supposedly five minutes (we ended up staying longer than five min) without lifting our head. -.-

Then we had trainfire. Was about to dissemble the rifle when someone in another group lost the retaining pin of the rifle. Entire activity cancelled, and we were forced to sit down without moving for like 20 min while the seniors combed the area for that pin. We were supposed to have paintball at night (remember it was raining in the afternoon) but this event cancelled the activity, and we didn't have a chance anymore.

Went back to bunk. Collected the bedsheets and whatever crap. Shifted my stuff to the upper bunk of the double bunk bed. The one closest to the wall. And then two moths were so damn irritating, i shot one with rubber band when it was resting on the window grill. It moved a little, and fell all the way down onto the ground. Tried to fly but couldn't do so. My friend stepped on it. The other moth appeared on the wall which was where I was going to sleep at, and I smashed it (I think). Damn irritating. Placed the wall fan to blow directly at me whilst still blowing others, and slept throughout the night.

I woke up and found my phone on the floor, smashed into pieces (The battery fell out, the covers front and back came out along with the keypad, it was a damn old nokia phone). Fixed it back, and couldn't sleep anymore. Left the bunk at 6am and fell in. Had breakfast, and then a few hours of orienteering. Then in the afternoon we had trainfire again (all activities were ceased once the missing pin was reported to the air commander who appeared out of nowhere). Then went back to pack bunk, and left the camp.

After all the ACS(I) NCC Air people gathered together, we had to wait like 20-30min for the bus to arrive. Throughout the entire journey the place was covered by dark cloud. Damn dark. Was around five, and it looked like seven. Terrible.

So I only took part in three activities.

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人之命,若无意,何生乎?22:55

Sunday 18 April 2010



Well, I shall post about Friday, yesterday and today.

Friday

I went to school. I went for the Poetry Slam competition thing. My team lost... Although in the first round, we topped everyone, then the judges changed and now we were like in the middle of everyone... Went for NCC after that. Most of the staffs were gone, and the cadet officers were taking over. Damn fierce (from what I saw, we were drilled by the 2nd master sergeant). Was asked to shout loud for the cheer. Lungs almost collapsed.

Saturday

Spent most of the time in the morning doing the class blogskin. Went to a restaurant to eat after swimming lessons. Uncle's treat. Food wasn't too bad, a little too little, but I was told it cost around a thousand. Wonderful.

Sunday

That's today, dammit. And I'm posting in the afternoon. Went for some injection, and then I completed the class blogskin. However, I don't know whether it's good enough or not.

Well, that's that.

-.-

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人之命,若无意,何生乎?15:52

Thursday 15 April 2010



Well, it's been a long time since I blogged. But then again, this is school life I'm referring to.

Well, today, I took out my life science book and read it. Funny how what we're learning here in ACS is different from what others learnt (except for NUS High, I think). The year started with the first topic DNA replication. What the heck. All the polymerase crap and topoisomerase or whatever. Damn complicated, but I made it through round one.

Round two. Polymerase chain reaction. Plant tissue culture. Hydroponics. Protoplast culture.

-.-

Funny how we're learning complicated unknown biology but this isn't the case for physical sciences (chem, physics). We're learning chemical and physical changes. If only the physical sciences were the same as the life sciences. We'd be learning quantum physics and relativity now or tritations and the avogadro's constant thingy. Or even better, organic chemistry. But no, nobody appreciates the beauty of physics. Only biology.

-.-

So, I'm off to study the 17 nutrients and their functions on plants.

...

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人之命,若无意,何生乎?19:34

Saturday 3 April 2010



Done!

Finally, after a few hours, I'm done with my own blogskin.

Actually, it isn't my own. Rather, I edited a current one very drastically such that it looks completely different from the original. Still, I left the credits there. The picture was taken in Malacca during my Overseas Education Programme, and I uploaded it on imageshack for the picture to show up. The link under the credits should show you the author.

=D

Yesterday was a weird day. My friends and I had to do an electronics project, and so we sent to Sim Lim Square to buy the solid-state electronics (transistors and all those crap). We ran around in circles trying to look for a suitable shop until a kind soul told us that we could find what we're looking for at Sim Lim TOWER.

Damn, all the trouble. We went across the streets to access the tower, and bought the parts. Bought the wrong thing (I mistaken the positive and negative voltage regulator for a transistor) and we forgot to buy resistors with the proper values (we needed 3.6 megaOhm; we bought a 2.2 ohm one). We needed a capacitor as well, but we didn't buy it.

So when we went to one of my friend's house to assemble the parts, we were stuck. We bought piezoelectric transducers to convert sound waves to electricity, though there must be a coupler (like a cone) to make the piezoelectric transducers react to sound, otherwise they can only detect vibrations. So we were doomed, because it means that my plan has failed.

Anyway, the plan was to have a mini microphone that takes in sound from the surroundings and sends it to a vibrator. This vibrator will alert people of sudden loud sounds (normally indicating imminent danger) through vibration, and this vibrator is attached to the skin. So loud sounds will make the vibrator vibrate like mad, while ambient sounds would still make the thing vibrate, albeit of a lower intensity. To prevent any vibrations at all for ambient sounds, a resistor can be added to attenuate the signal received.

My 2nd design consists of a piezoelectric microphone that is attached to a piezoelectric speaker (all speakers vibrate to create sound, just attach that cone to you and you will feel the vibration). However, piezoelectric microphones have high impedance, and for some reason which might be due to the circuit itself being of low impedance, no current was generated when I smashed the piezoelectric disc. And the speaker needs alternating current between 4 to 7 kHz otherwise a sine-wave generator must be connected. And the crystals do not vibrate with great intensity. So ultimately, piezoelectrics cannot be used -.-

My original design consists of a dynamic microphone that is attached to a dynamic speaker (the normal ones you have at home). But they were large and bulky, therefore I went with the piezo, but then it did not work.
I could have used a headset that has microphones in it and extract them (obviously they are tiny; you wouldn't want to attach them to your body if they were the size of the ones people use on stages). We could extract the stuff from a telephone too, just remove the duplex coil and they will work. Since the dynamic mic and speaker are of low impedance, the circuit needn't contain high value resistors.

And finally, my third design shall be used if the speaker fails to get anyone's attention. Instead of a vibration, heat can be used to alert the person, but that's a different story altogether.

And what about those piezos my friends and I bought? I'll just use them for my amplifier ^_^

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人之命,若无意,何生乎?10:25

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Darrell Tay. 16. Chinese Singaporean. Normal, ordinary guy. Covered by shadows casted by others. Loves my guitar, heavy metal and darkness. Or rather, I've been used to it. You can probably find photos in the archives, but I take no responsibility if your computer screen's damaged. :)


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