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  • 04 Apr

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    Broken Fruit

    0

    So two Saturdays ago (yes Sunday came afterwards), when I was trying to show off a Youtube video, my Macbook Pro crashed hard. It wouldn’t boot Mac OS, although it could boot Windows after about 10 minutes, and with a 30-second delay on every mouse click. It was time to test Apple’s service.

    I brought my computer in on the following Monday. The diagnosis was either a faulty hard disk or faulty cable. It turned out to be the hard disk so they replaced it and (kindly) returned the old disk in case I ever needed the date on it. But the repair cost was horrendous: £144 for the replacement of a hard disk and service charge! Absolutely ridiculous. Luckily I bought the extended warranty (Applecare Protection Plan, because “extended warranty” doesn’t sound fancy enough) so it was all free.

    But the best part: they called me up two hours later to pick up the laptop, even though they said it’d take a few days. :D Awesome service time, I’m glad someone spent 15 minutes quickly changing the hard drive.

    But of course, in the world of computers, problems keep on arising. First problem: since it’s a new disk, every bit of data was wiped. Luckily I had backups of my Mac side, so that was fine, but my entire Windows system was wiped completely. I lost all ~200 replays of SC2 :(

    And of course, as a gamer I had to install Windows, or else I might fall ill from boredom. As I put in the Windows DVD, my DVD drive began to rebel. It started making a ‘whirrrrrrrr whiiiiiirrrrrr WHIIIIRRRRRRR whiiirrrr…..’ sound which then repeated every 10 seconds for 5 minutes. It also refused to eject the disk until it finally gave up and stopped whirring, whereupon it spit out the disk and complained about how empty it was.

    Thing was, it wasn’t empty, as it was perfectly fine on other laptops. So I spent the entire afternoon trying to install windows without actually using my DVD drive, first by trying to use other laptops’ DVD drives to remote install, and then trying to install by ripping the image file and using Parallels or VMware Fusion. I must have wasted at least four hours and after I gave up my Sunday went from OK to bleh.

    So today I went to the Apple Store again and they replaced the drive in an hour, after telling me it would take several days. Oh, and they would have charged me £94 if it wasn’t under warranty.

    I don’t know what to say, Apple. On the one hand, you fix things so quickly that I can’t help but admire your efficiency. On the other hand, you would have charged me £238 for two really simple repairs. And your hardware failed me twice in a week.

  • 15 Mar

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    Malaysian Night

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    The event: Malaysian Night at the University of Cambridge. What is it? As far as I know, Malaysian Night is a great excuse to produce a play which reflects (and makes fun of) Malaysian culture. Also, its a good way to find how many Malaysians like to watch plays.

    This past Saturday started like most Saturdays: wake up at 11 am, stare drowsily at my iPhone and hit snooze. Go back to sleep but don’t actually sleep; instead, think about the meaning of life, the purpose of existence, a new Sentry-heavy Protoss build against Terran, food, how much time I’m wasting thinking about things in bed, and the universe in general. Also customary is the willingness to skip breakfast to enjoy a better blunch (if brunch is between breakfast and lunch, then blunch is between brunch and lunch).

    I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing all my economics homework so I wouldn’t have to rush it on Sunday night playing Starcraft 2.

    By about 5pm a bunch of us (10? or thereabouts) were at Yippee Noodle Bar ordering noodles (and the odd rice) to eat. Yippee noodles are delicious, give them a try. Then we went to Christ’s College for the play. All we were told when we got in was to follow the white signs to the theatre; our large group of brilliant future minds got lost twice. At last we found the theatre and sat down…

    All of us. Some are hiding :/ Picture by Stephanie Cheng.

     

    While waiting for the show to start I was also wondering what the CUMaS meant. Cambridge University Malaysia Society? Then why bother putting a lower case ‘a’ in the acrony- oh. I see.

    Seeing as the website, facebook page, ticket and programme book all had zero information on the play’s story, the only thing which allowed me to guess the story was the title, “What Are Friends For”. I had some ideas:

    • A touching story about how friendship connects people. The value of friendship in our lives.
    • Dramatic comedy about friends in Malaysia.
    • Explosions and aliens.

    I was pretty sure that the first idea would be the actual play, but that most of the male population would enjoy the third option.

    Anyways, the play happened to be about four friends from high school who went their separate ways for college. It starts off with them reuniting during their summer holidays in Malaysia. Then inject drama, relationships, and comedy into the story.

    And the result is a surprisingly good story about these friends and their lives. The writers managed to interweave four storylines (the friendship, and three of the main characters families) together without making people confused. At the same time, the story is surprisingly realisticly told, and it truly made me feel that the events could have (and definitely does) happen in real life. Parents controlling their kids’ lives, trust among friends, broken families, troubled childhoods; it’s all there and I enjoyed every moment of the story.

    Some highlights (paraphrased from memory):

    • Mrs. Lim: “That boy ah, studying at that university with an animal inside ah- what’s it called? Cowford ah?”
      Sue Ann: “…”
      Sue Ann: “He’s studying in Oxford.”
      Crowd: *uproarious laughter*
      Sue Ann: “It’s almost as good as Cambridge. *pinches fingers in the air* Almost.
    • Any scene which involved Ashvin and Sue Ann alone. This will single-handedly raise girls’ expectations on how guys should compliment them.
    • The hilarious breaking-the-fourth-wall Facebook monologue which was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant writing which is impossible to replicate here.
    • The final conflict scene where the main characters meet and end up screaming, shouting and accusing each other. Great scene.
    • Cute, young boy on stage who couldn’t stop laughing and made everyone’s hearts go “AWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwww sho cuuuutte” for the three minutes he was on.

    After the show (which sadly, will never be shown again :[ ), we stood outside for a while taking pictures (blegh). Then we began the slow, long walk back to my house. Over the course of the 40-minute walk (which should have taken 20 minutes), we rejected Pizza Hut, were slurred by a drunken hobo, a relationship was revealed (taking the number of relationships in our group from 3.5 to 4. :p ) and most sane people went back to their houses. But about 11 of the 25 actually made it to the house. We played football (on the PS3), played poker (without actual money) and played a drinking/confession game (without any alcohol).

    ._.

    But in the end, after knowing a little more of each other and knowing a few new magic tricks, everyone left by 2am. I went to sleep happily after enjoying the awesome day and the charming parting smile :)

    Long fun day :D will have to blog about it soon.
    March 13, 2011 10:58 am via Seesmic for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
    @jiannmeng
    Tan Jiann Meng
  • 10 Mar

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    The Results Are In…

    2

    A-Level January 2011 Exam Results

    Subject UMS Grade
    Mechanics 3 95/100 A
    Statistics 1 100/100 A
    Statistics 2 100/100 A
    Decision Mathematics 1 100/100 A
    Economics 3 78/80 A
    Physics 4 120/120 A

    I’m happy with my results :)

    By the way, if you’re interesting in the grade boundaries, look here. And if you want to know the difference between raw marks and UMS, read this.

  • 18 Jan

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    Solar-powered Carbon Extractor

    2

    Today in class I suddenly had a brilliant idea for a new invention:

    Make a cheap, portable small box with a solar panel on the top. Inside the box make a little machine which extracts carbon from carbon dioxide (I don’t care how, make it cheap and simple). Now the box spouts out oxygen and deposits carbon inside a little waste box which you can clean every month or so. All for free since it’s solar powered.

    Then I noticed a fatal problem: this already exists.

    It’s called a plant.

  • 08 Jan

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    Cambridge Offer: A Simple Analysis

    0

    Here are the exact conditions of my offer to Trinity College, University of Cambridge.

    • A*AA in A-levels, excluding Economics.
    • Grade S in both STEP Paper 2 and Paper 3.

    Let’s analyse:

    For A-levels, I already have an A* in Mathematics so that’s in the bag. For Further Maths, I must score an average of 80% in 6 papers (called modules) out of 9 that I’m taking. (Not exactly; I already have a 97% in Further Pure 1, so the average I need for the remaining papers is slightly lower, plus I can rearrange my Mechanics 1 or 2 paper into the Further Maths grade instead of Maths if needed.)

    For Physics, I currently have 295/300, or 98.33%. To get an A (80%), I need another 185/300 in A2, or 61.67%. This should not be difficult.

    For Economics, I could fail it and it wouldn’t matter in terms of my offer. I’d lose all my pride though.

    The STEP papers are something else. Whereas all the above are achievable (I would even dare call it… “easy”), STEP papers are… difficult. An example is in order:

    STEP Paper 2 2009 Question 1

    Two curves have equations x4 + y4 = u and xy = v , where u and v are positive constants. State the equations of the lines of symmetry of each curve.
    The curves intersect at the distinct points A, B, C and D (taken anticlockwise from A). The coordinates of A are (α,β), where α > β > 0. Write down, in terms of α and β, the coordinates of B, C and D.
    Show that the quadrilateral ABCD is a rectangle and find its area in terms of u and v only. Verify that, for the case u = 81 and v = 4, the area is 14.

    There are 13 questions for each paper. 8 are pure mathematics (like the one above), 2 are probability and statistics questions, and 3 are mechanics questions. They will mark your best 6 answers to any questions, with up to 20 marks per question. In general, to get an S, I will need to answer five questions fully and a sixth partially in STEP 2, and four questions fully in STEP 3. To give you an idea of how difficult this is, the above question (and the whole of STEP 2) can be answered using only knowledge from the Mathematics A-Level subject, whereas STEP 3 requires Further Mathematics knowledge. Technically, if you’ve done your SPM Further Maths, you have enough knowledge to answer the question above. Good luck.

    My entire focus for the next six months is to study sufficiently to achieve an A* in all subjects, and spending the rest of my studying time on STEP. It should be pretty fun.

    Fun Fact: The full name of Trinity College is: The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.

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