Teachers day was last Friday, and I thought it would be good to make a small post in tribute to an interesting teacher I had in form 4. Imagine a 200 pound man, with a thick moustache, carrying intimidating rotan, and wore nothing but Chairman Mao style Bush-coats everyday–that’s Mr. Vijay, and he thought me Additional Mathematics. Mr. Vijay was interesting in many ways, including the...
I drive a Prius–it’s a magnificent car, and if you think otherwise just ask me about the mileage. But when I tell people I drive a Prius, I get a sneer and look that suggest I must be a bumbling idiot, you know the one where their face wrinkles up near the nose. People ask the usual mileage questions (5Liters/100km if you’re curious), and make some oft-remark about the...
Do a quick experiment: 1. Fill a glass half-full with water 2. Drop a couple of ice-cubes into the glass 3. Measure the water level before the ice melts 4. Measure the water level after the ice melts Now compare the water level before and after the ice melted, and you’ll find them to be the same. So if melting ice doesn’t increase the water level in your glass–why do melting ice...
We are all a single species, all of us share a common DNA, so common that if yours changed by a mere 2% you’d be a chimpanzee. We share one atmosphere, from which we breath the same air–not just with other humans alive today, but those of past times as well. In fact, every breath you take contains a slither of air from the breadth of everyone else–who has ever lived. I stand in...
“House of Cards is really big in India, I discovered,” Spacey told reporters at the International Indian Film Academy Awards which took place in Tampa, Floria – the first time they’ve been held in America. “Except isn’t it funny that Netflix doesn’t exist there yet. Which means that you’re stealing it.” I’m gonna be honest here. Kevin Spacey is one of my...
This is how fast your connection on AWS in Singapore is when connecting to a Singaporean server. Not much different if you repeat it, but I was surprised the ping was still 2ms, I expected to be just 1 (or even less).
WTF is a bitcoin? There’s much ado over the digital currency and many people struggle to understand what it is. In fact, even I haven’t fully grasped the fundamental nature of how it works–but then again I don’t know how the banking and fiat currency system work, yet I still use it. In essence, there’s been a huge amount of really technical literature written about...
Well maybe that’s an exaggeration, it’s actually 2 minutes and 1 second!
With the on-going debacle about the Kangkung saga dying down, I thought it would be a good opportunity to write specifically about internet censorship and its implications to ordinary Malaysian citizens. As you may well know, many Malaysia Netizens reported of difficulty accessing one particular post of the BBC website that dealt with the Kangkung issues, causing many to cite that Telekom...
The latest PISA 2012 results are out, and it comes with a twist. Instead of testing the usual ‘knowledge’ of the students, PISA crafted a new exam meant to test the creative problem solving skills of students in various countries. Edweek.org further explains: The assessment, which was the subject of an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report released...