ĸy

So, I've finally built my own system.  Specs are as follows

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.0 GHz cooled with Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and has Arctic Silver 5 cooling compound.
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro
RAM: 2x 1GB Corsair DDR2 PC6400 C5DHX, 2x 1GB Samsung DDR2 PC6400, Total 4GB
Graphic card: Gainward 9600GT 512MB
Sound card: Creative Audigy
Power supply unit: Corsair HX620 620W
HDD: 1x Seagate 500GB 7200.11 32MB cache, 2x 160GB Samsung
Fans: x5 120mm, 4 CoolerMaster 1 Silverstone, 2 at the front, 1 at the back, 2 mounted on the TRUE120 and one on the chassis door (blowing directly on the top of TRUE120)
OS: Vista Home Premium 64bits
Chassis: iCute Super18

Also got a new LG L227WTG 22" monitor.

I've got plenty to complain about my system, especially the assembling progress.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 <- As expected of Intel, there isn't anything bad I can say about this processor.

Asus P5Q Pro <- Luck decreed that I get a problematic motherboard that doesn't work. Had to waste a day going back to my retailer to change for a working on.

The box and the insides

Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme (TRUE120) <- Extremely frustrating to set up, the instructions were quite unclear and it took some time to figure out exactly how to put them on and mount 2 fans onto it correctly. Also, it's quite heavy, which is a good thing 'cuz that means the cooler is made of good stuff.

 
The TRUE120 and it's nondescript packaging

 
The retarded hooks

However, it does has it merits, as expected of Thermalright's quality. The cooling is quite good, and even after my comp runs for some time the top of the cooler doesn't get hot at all. Here are some numerical values to prove them.

It is however a bit on the 'big' side so you'll probably need at least an ATX chassis to use it.

4GB RAM cards <- Nothing much you could complain about RAM cards. I personally don't find a major difference between the better cards and the slower cards. The only thing that really matters is the size.

Gainward 9600GT 512MB <- Cheap and good. Great upgrade from my previous nVidia stock 7900GS 256MB. Highly recommended graphic card if you are thinking of getting something that is good and within budget.

Creative Audigy <- Decent and cheap card. Definitely better than onboard sounds.

Corsair HX620 <- Decently priced @$160+/- and supplies more than enough power (620W) for most purposes. Also has high efficiency (87%+) if you are keen on keeping your power bills low.

HDDs <- It's just plain old decent, nothing too impressive that I can detect.

iCute Super18 <- Cheap and good full tower chassis. Most full towers usually costs over $250 at least and this one only cost $200

Vista <- Still testing it, can't really comment yet.

"Ow!"

I knocked into something and fell backwards. Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I looked more carefully at what I walked into. It was more of "who" than "what".

"Walking consist of keeping your eyes open, mister," the unfortunate girl whom I knocked down said. Her words were practically dripping with sarcasm.

I gave a feeble attempt at gentility by helping her up while mumbling my apologies, all the while averting my gaze away from her out of embarrassment.

The invisible hand of fate decided to give me another push, and I slipped, forward this time, thanks to an empty plastic bottle. Not good. An attempt to change the direction of my fall was futile, and I pushed down the girl along with me. I landed so closely to the girl that I could feel her breathing. I heard a sickening crack, and my right hand went numb with pain. Stifling a cry, I grimaced in pain, silently cursing myself for carrying such a massive bag.

Only then, at such a close range, my eyes met with hers. Those clear, brilliantly blue eyes locked onto mine. I felt time stop for a moment as my heart skipped a beat and blood rushed to my cheeks. That moment burned deep into my mind, and I nearly thought I was dreaming, until the pain in my hand pulled me back to reality. The sulking eyes had melted into concerned ones.

“Ar… Are you ok?!” she asked worriedly, glancing at my hand.

“Never been better,” I joked. I pulled myself off her and stood up and offered my better hand to the girl.

She exclaimed “You are definitely not ok! You need a doctor! You are bleeding! And I think you broke something there!” She declined my help and stood up by herself.

“I… can handle…” I muttered, as I felt my vision blur and sound started to distort. I gave a start and lurched awkwardly sideways, feeling extreme pain on my left ankle. I felt myself free-falling and the next thing I saw was darkness.

---

I blinked. And there it was: The same glorious eyes. I didn’t mind dying at that moment.

“I’ll get the doctor” I heard her whisper, and I saw her silhouette leave the patients’ room.

I grinned in euphoria as she left. Despite breaking a limb and spraining an ankle, meeting this girl is definitely the best thing that has happened to me in a long time.

Good evening principal and teachers.

In Singapore, many schools have uniforms that are required to be tucked in. In Angilcan Secondary, a school known for excellence in sports, keeping one's shirt tucked in is not difficult during school time, but afterwards, when students participate in physical activities, the shirt would definitely be tucked out and since it is simply not practical to bring extra clothes just to play sports, which Angilcan Secondary openly flaunts as its most outstanding achievement.

Also, many students do not like to tuck in their shirts as it is both an in convenience and a hassle to be constantly bothered by it. Instead of insisting that students keep their shirts tucked in and offering punishments for those who do not, why not just design the shirt such that it is meant to be tucked out? This would save the discipline master the problem of incorrigible students who simple refuse to tuck in their shirts

The design of the school uniform is such that tucking in is difficult for taller students as the shirt tends to be short, and the uniform would then have to be custom-tailored because of it bad design. Tall students in Angilcan Secondary are extremely common as most of the student cohort have some sports background, especially for basketball players. The uniform supplier should at the very least, be informed to stock longer shirt so that the students need not be frustrated over these minor matters.

The uniform also poses a definite danger to the student's life, or more specifically, the buttons of the uniform. When seated in the front passenger seat of a typical car, if the air bags were to be activated, the student would be impaled by the metal buttons of the uniform if the air bags were forceful enough. Hence even if the student were to survive a car crash, he would still be wounded seriously by bad design of the uniform. The button rings are also prone to snapping due to its weak design, and if the student were to indeed be impaled by the buttons, this can lead to many complications for the surgeons to handle.

To this perplexing situation, I propose that a new uniform design be made and that it be appropriate for both light physical activities and formal occasions. This uniform should only consist of small plastic buttons, and should be designed to be tucked out.

What makes Albert Einstein famous and what is the one thing that propelled him to fame?

Albert Einstein, born in March 14, 1879 and died on April 18, 1955, was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass-energy equivalence, E = mc². He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

Einstein's many contributions to physics include his special theory of relativity, which reconciled mechanics with electromagnetism, and his general theory of relativity which extended the principle of relativity to non-uniform motion, creating a new theory of gravitation. His other contributions include relativistic cosmology, capillary action, critical opalescence, classical problems of statistical mechanics and their application to quantum theory, an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules, atomic transition probabilities, the quantum theory of a monatomic gas, thermal properties of light with low radiation density (which laid the foundation for the photon theory), a theory of radiation including stimulated emission, the conception of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics.

Works by Albert Einstein include more than fifty scientific papers and also non-scientific books. In 1999 Einstein was named Time magazine's "Person of the Century", and a poll of prominent physicists named him the greatest physicist of all time. In popular culture the name "Einstein" has become synonymous with genius.

Do you think Albert Einstein is a “genius”? Why?

Yes. Albert Einstein was a genius mainly because he was the first person to think of E = mc² which is known as the special theory of relativity. Everybody thinks that Albert Einstein's IQ was very high, but this is definitely not the case, his adult IQ was just above 160. He was definitely a genius, but this was not primarily due to his IQ, but his amazing level on transcendental thinking. However, as far as we know today, Albert Einstein has never done any IQ test. Thus his exact IQ is unknown. The pathologist who completed the post-mortem report on Einstein after he died took his brain out to preserve in hopes that future neurology can determine how he was so immensely intelligent.

What makes this person considered ‘crazy’? Albert Einstein strongly believes that rote learning is terrible for cultivating curiousity, as he puts it, 'Its a miracle that curiousity survives formal education.' Other than this, Einstein was not really considered 'crazy' or 'weird' at his time, as the time for religious dominance was long over and people were much more open to science.

Done by

Low Kah Yuan (33)
Tseng Sheng Hsuan (37)
Wong Jia Xiang (39)
Leonard Chew Pang Ngee (23)

7th June '07

We (That is, coincidentally 7 family members in total as well) took off from Singapore to Suzhou, China. Haven’t been on a plane for ages, I nearly forgot what it was like. After 5 +/- hours in the damned seat, I finally got off and set foot on China soil. The weather was fine, far less humid than the wretched Singapore weather and not as warm. I took a long ride to my uncle’s house with 2 little buggers, my sister and my cousin, along with my grandmother. We had a nice guy called Mu Xing driving us there.
Uncle’s house was well-designed and maintained, but then again, he’s an architect. My cousin and I shared the small and cozy study room for sleeping.
We went to buy *ahem* pirated *ahem* DVDs. Many were surprisingly damn good quality of the real DVD, much unlike ones you would find in Singapore sometime ago… Obviously, after which we went shopping round.
Ever played games like Burnout? The traffic here is something like that. We were all, well; stunned by the way drivers drive around here. When the police are not around, some drivers ignore the red lights. Pedestrians give way to the drivers. Cars keep the maximum of 50cm away from each other. The honking of vehicles is at the discretion of the drivers, not any rules or regulation. The result is non-stop honking of sickening cars resounding throughout the day. Luckily most drivers are considerate (or drunk) enough to lessen it at night.
Suffice to say, a Singaporean driver here in China would take at least thrice the time it would take a Chinese driver to get from place to place. I’ll be damned, but I highly doubt there are any Singaporean drivers to begin with.
Anyways, the food here is very good, mainly because it is very fresh, very oily and contains enough MSG to drown you. Singapore food is more or less the same but it is damn rare to find them, and also it is never fresh, minus seafood.
We had dinner courtesy of my younger uncle (of the same uncle that allowed us to stay over). His name is Edmund, and we call him 小舅and he’s on my mother side of the family. We had a 8 (around that) course meal and most were stuff you would never find in Singapore. I will upload pictures after the holidays end, snapped with my bitchy sister’s pathetic camera.

Firstly, how does one defines Justice and Grace? From Merriam Webster’s: Grace: sense of propriety or right <had the grace not to run for elective office -- Calvin Trillin> b : the quality or state of being considerate or thoughtful; Justice: the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments  the question would be, how is there grace in justice? (Or vice versa) Let’s take a look at Singapore’s judiciary system. The Singapore government is made up of three systems, the judiciary, legislative, and executive. In this case, the judiciary is made up of the Chief Justice and other justices.

When making judgments, the judge in question may not be influenced by other outside factors, for example, the accused having a high political status. Assuming the judge is impartial, and the evidences are sufficient, justice will be mete out. What if the judge is corrupt? What if evidences do not suffice to make judgment? Even worse, what if the judge erred in judgment? Any one of this will render the whole hearing obsolete. The punishment will become either too much or too little, maybe even non-existent. This is where grace comes in. How does one punish a person who did not do wrong (or too much of it) appropriately?

Humans are not omniscient. We do not know who truly sinned in his or her life. There is no perfect system of justice, nor or is there utopia. Anyone who strives towards it is foolish. Such concepts only exist in our minds. Put simply, it is not possible. Everything has a loophole, flaw, or something similar. With such as bleak outlook at life and everything we stand for, what do we do?

We settle for the best possible answer to crime. We attempt to emulate the best system of justice that tries to keep grace in it. Prevention; if a crime is not committed in the first place, there is no need for justice. And so, we have fools calling Singapore’s punishment and laws draconic. If one does not commit crimes (Or contemplate in doing so) in the first place, why would one fear this draconic system?  But as stated previously, there are loopholes in everything, and this is no exception. Having such strict punishments and laws would be disastrous if one was framed, and the heinous deed carried out perfectly.

In conclusion, Grace and Justice do not fit well into a puzzle. There will always be a sore edge jutting out of a near perfect piece.

ĸy out-