First astronomy lesson

July 16th, 2008 at 23:52 · Filed Under Astronomy, At Home, Blogging, Days in My Life, Education, Family · Comment 

After the TV, I went to lock the outer gate. The sky was clear and I could see the full moon and many stars. I saw the brightest star twinkling on the lower left corner not far away from the moon. I guessed it was Jupiter. Jupiter is the largest planet and one of the four outer gas giants or Jovians in our solar system. To be sure, I checked with Stellarium on my Mac and confirmed it was Jupiter.

Then I called the boys and mom to gaze at the sky and told them it was Jupiter the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet in our solar system. I told them that Jupiter would take about 11 years to orbit the Sun compare to one year for our planet earth. The two older boys responded with a big “Wow!” Nik was rather excited and very vocal.

We could also see some other stars and Ara, Triangulum Australe, Libra and Virgo constellation. They were magnificent.

The kids had their first astronomy lesson and so did I. I learned that Pluto is no longer the ninth planet in our solar system. Instead, the International Astronomical Union or IAU has reclassified Pluto as one of the four dwarf planets together with Ceres, Makemake and Eris.

I will reconsider to acquire a telescope soon. I almost invested in a Meade’s ETX-90PE in 1998 but for some reason I did not. I will consider a larger model, ETX-125PE.

I became interested in astronomy when I was first introduced by two persons. One was Dr. Ghaffar and Khoo. Dr. Ghaffar is a nuclear physicist and Khoo is my ex-classmate and a mechanical engineer. Both of them were very involved in star gazing. Khoo had even built his own 12″ diameter Newtonian Reflective Telescope.

I almost invested into one as mentioned earlier but I didn’t. At some point, I became very interested in astrophysics. Writing software to model celestial body can be interestingly challenging. Perhaps I should go get a Ph.D. and become an astrophysicist. Or, perhaps, one of the boys will become a renown astrophysicist.

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Tycoon or dick heads?

July 16th, 2008 at 9:35 · Filed Under Blogging, Critiques, Education, WTF · 7 Comments 

Dressing is really a knowledge for both men and women. Dressing reflects professionalism and social status of the person. Those youngsters in the universities lack dressing knowledge. Universities enforced dress code to prohibit sandals, shorts etc in campus but that does not do any help in students’ dressing.

I read on a blog about a comment by Nemesis, where he described some university students as dick heads. His comment was deleted later because he used the offending term: dick head. Well, I read about it and had a good laugh.

Read more

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Thinking in a nutshell

July 4th, 2008 at 10:36 · Filed Under Blogging, Critiques, Education, Humanity, Philosophy, Social · 6 Comments 

Most Malaysia graduate students lack critical thinking and have narrow thinking in their small nutshell and yet they think they are thinking and handling problems like an adult. I don’t know exactly what makes them having this false perception but I think it is the lacking of critical thinking, experience and limited exposure in the real world of survivor. They are restrained only to academic and their activities circles are also bounded by non-sense laws set by the universities. These laws are designed to suppress the basic human rights of the students. Read more

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Press Conference Against MMU’s Imposition of IT Service Fee

June 30th, 2008 at 10:09 · Filed Under Conferences, Critiques, Education, WTF · 2 Comments 

(Repost)

After a successful imposition of library fee, now MMU grubs for more! The latest announcement that MMU is planning to impose an annual IT service fee of RM100 from each student starting this trimester has exasperated everyone. Complaints are heard everywhere. But look, the Finance Division can’t hear you; the President can’t hear you. The voice of SRC alone is too soft. Now we need to borrow the foreign force to amplify our voices!

There will be a press conference held at DAP Dun Ayer Keroh Service Centre on this coming Thursday. Press and media will be present at the conference.

Date : July 3, 2008
Time : 12:30PM
Venue : 63-2, Jalan DB1, Taman Bukit Beruang Indah, 75450 Bukit Beruang. (Same row with US Pizza, second last lot)

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反对MMU收费新闻招待会

June 30th, 2008 at 10:09 · Filed Under Conferences, Critiques, Education, WTF · Comment 

（转帖）

MMU强收每位学生RM60的图书馆费还不够，居然还得寸进尺想再收取每人RM100的IT服务费，岂有此理？消息一放，怨声四起。但是，在网站上叫骂，有用吗？MMU的高层可晓得你对他们的不满？单靠SRC替我们请愿，有用吗？我们有近两万人的学生，为何只靠那几十位？我们自身的权利，应当由我们自己争取，而不是单靠SRC，因为到底付钱的是我们。试问SRC能为我们承担吗？ 现在让你站出来发言的机会来了。这个星期四在Ayer Keroh区民主行动党服务中心将有一项新闻招待会让MMU学生有机会发表有关课题和其它不合理的课题。多家媒体将出席这项招待会。

日期：3/7/08

时间：12:30PM

地点：63-2, Jalan DB1, Taman Bukit Beruang Indah, 75450 Bukit Beruang. (和US Pizza同排, 最后第二间)

(English version here)

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多难兴邦

May 28th, 2008 at 12:16 · Filed Under Blogging, China, Days in My Life, Education, Humanity, Philosophy, Social · Comment 

温爷爷在北川中学黑板上写的四个大字：“多难兴邦”。这四个字已经铭刻在忆万中国人心中。这四个字也给了我很大的回响。

一个国家灾难重重，必能训练出超强的毅力和团结力以应付重重灾难。一个人如果困难重重，也必能训练出超强的毅力和顺应能力。所以，当一个人遇上重重困难时，千万要记得温爷爷的四个字：“多难兴邦”！绝对要理性起来，绝不能灰心和放弃。

好一个“多难兴邦（人）”！

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Malaysia tertiary education - A systemic failure

May 21st, 2008 at 2:43 · Filed Under Blogging, Critiques, Education, Social · Comment 

One common thing I found especially in Computer Science (and engineering faculty where programming is taught) in all my visits to most Malaysian universities, none of their programming courses is ever impressive to me. The state universities are slightly better than private universities. Yet, still many of them do not teach proper programming concepts. Most of the programming courses teach C or Java as an introductory to programming. The worst thing is that these lecturers have not even mastered the language themselves.

One common thread is that, students are often given an assignment to use other programming languages like Visual Basic which they have not been taught any lesson. Students have to pick up the language themselves.

As the result, many local university graduates do not have proper training in programming and the worst, lack of systematic discipline and systematic reasoning skills. I have personally experienced this with interns and projects seeded to universities.

Some of these graduates will continue doing their master degree in the comfort of the university environment, simply they cannot find a job, they become assistant lecturers. This begins the vicious cycle. A student without proper training in programming gets into the teaching system and begins to teach improper method to younger students!

This is a systemic failure in our local education system. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I once knew a student from TARC (Tar College). She was doing accounting after her STPM. She was suffering because she could not catch up with the course work due to bad command of English. After some lengthy discussions, she finally decided to quit. Good for her. But, do you know what? She applied and was admitted into teacher training program. By now, I guess, she is teaching in the primary or secondary school. There goes another vicious cycle. A sub-standard teaching the younger generation to be sub-standards!

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Queue up please!

May 12th, 2008 at 19:44 · Filed Under Critiques, Education, Politics, Social · Comment 

When grandma, Dmitry and I were at the immigration department to renew our passport, I noticed a group of students from Kolej Yayasan Saad at the department to apply for their passports too. One infuriating scenario was that these students were treated like VIPs and they did not have to queue up. They were escorted by immigration officers into the counter to apply their passport. Ordinary people were waiting for their numbers to be called outside the counter.

Why did they have such privilege? Isn’t supposed to teach these school children to queue up and to play fair in the society? I guessed these students really enjoyed being a VIP and roamed in the corridor of power! What a bunch spoilt brats!

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Laser Surgery

March 21st, 2008 at 23:59 · Filed Under Blogging, Days in My Life, Education, Medical · 2 Comments 

I had a laser surgery for my right eye this afternoon. It is an outpatient procedure. It took me about 5 minutes or less but I had to wait from 10AM till 1:30PM. That was a long wait.

I had my cataract surgery on June 19, 2007. Read here. I also posted a video of a cataract surgery here. The surgery removed my natural lens which had been clouded by the penta-fluoro carbon (C3F8) gas in the retina repair surgery. A new artificial lens was inserted to replace my natural lens. The only consolation reward I could think of was that my short-sightedness was reduced by half, as my doctor told me.

Posterior capsular opacification on retroilluminationDuring the phacoemulsification procedure, the lens is removed but not the posterior lens capsule. It has to be left there to hold the new artificial lens. Not all lens cells can be completely removed. Some are left behind. Sometimes, the lens cells grow across the new lens. It is more likely to grow back if you are younger. Sometimes this happens in a few months after the cataract surgery, sometimes years. This is not a re-growth of cataract. It is the thickening of the back of the lens capsule. It is called the posterior lens capsular opacification. The picture shows the posterior capsular opacification on retroillumination.

Frequency-doubled Nd:YAG (neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet; Nd:Y3Al5O12) laser with a wave length of 532nm is used to make a “hole” in part of the capsule to allow light to pass through the lens directly. This procedure is called YAG laser capsulotomy. The doctor aims the laser exactly onto the posterior lens capsule and fires very short pulses of laser to blast off the part of the capsule and make a small circle shaped area. This leaves some of the capsule intact to hold the lens. The very small part of the lens capsule which is cut away falls harmlessly inside the eye.

The laser capsulotomy is very quick and not painful at all. I only heard some clicking noise as the laser was working. My vision on my right eye became clear again immediately after the procedure. The only discomfort I had was when my doctor attached a contact lens onto my eye.

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Video of phacoemulsification cataract surgery

March 17th, 2008 at 0:59 · Filed Under Education, Medical · 2 Comments 

Last June, I had phaco to remove cataract on my right eye due to retina repair. Read more here. While surfing for some information, I found this video showing how this modern cataract surgery was done. It is very educational. I feel eerie while watching the video but it is rather educational. After watching the video, I appreciate my eyes more. And the video satisfies my curious appetite too.

Cheers! Sooner or later everyone has to go through this surgery. It is part of the natural aging process. Mine is caused by the retina repair surgery.

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