A Most Eventful Midterm Examination

I learnt a powerful lesson today, just before an exam... two, actually.

Part 1:

Someone had raised up their hand to get a switch of places, because the chair-table was for lefties and this guy is a rightie. He gets his rightful place (pun intended).

Reminded that I was sitting at a leftie seat, I requested a change of seats. The Professor and TAs scrambled about the lecture theatre to find a spare seat. One was located and I got a seat up at the top.

My friend, who was conveniently located the seat above at another leftie-table and behind me, not wanting to be left out, requested the third change of seating. By now, the crowd is roaring with laughter and booing at this annoyance. The Professor personally dragged a table with a label stating "RESERVED" across the carpeted lecture-theater floor, placing it where I previously sat. When the Prof stopped pushing, applause ensued.


Part 2:

While I was scratching my head over some heavy weight multiple choice questions (worth 5pts/100 each, 6 of them in total), one of my sneaky classmates was sitting there blankly, discretely looking in my direction. When I would tilt my head in his direction, his head would scramble back to rightful place. After many minutes of this thinking-dueling, I decided to hide my good answers in a deliberate manner while looking at him. The TA came over and told my sneaky mate to scoot over, into the middle of the row, too far to see my answers.

There are a lot of spare kidneys in the world!

Legalize organ sales!

- Demolish organ harvesting, organ Black Markets, organ availability only to rich and powerful people in China!

- You don't need 2 kidneys, you only need one! Everybody is a ready donor. Virtually nobody will die from kidney problems or have to suffer dialysis.

- If everyone could sell it, great compatible organs will be available to everyone who needs it.

- If it is legalized, it can be formally regulated and accepted by society, eliminating the medical terror associated with organ transplants due to organ harvesting and other currently sick images we have of this.

- Speaking of medical terror, I think that's what is blocking a lot of people's minds from everyone becoming a donor. That, and you can't sell a kidney to buy Apple products.

- "WELCOME, to the WORLD of the FUTURE!!!" Futurama, S01E01. 
Cryogenics, stem cells and all controversial medical procedures are cool and awesome in Futurama, so it's fine in real life!!

Course Overloading

Overloading on courses are made me feel many feelings one cannot get while on the normal course. I feel the strain that comes with understanding many things well in a single day. I feel just how big the whole universe is if one digs deep on everything in sight. But with that feeling, you also get the wonder of just how related everything actually is. You also feel that the mind has grown a little stronger and more logical, so much in fact, I think it clashes with the non-linear, dynamic. With this arises the need to wind down and go get something creative and unrelated to do after a day of work. 

I haven't tried this lifestyle before. I'm finding it new right now, but time will tell if it's right for me. I think it depends heavily on the mindset brought into this kind of lifestyle. If there is no real choice, I find it difficult to do. This experiment was done purely for choice and curious fun. 

What? SQRT(4)=2 and not just -2

I was doing simple linear approximations today and this came up.
Apparently, sqrt(y) where y=4 must be 2 and not also -2, or else the equation is wrong and doesn't work.
It's because there is no change in sign if you square root both sides to find the answer.

answer^2 = 4
answer = sqrt(4)

The sign is naturally positive outside the square root.

The Question:






Find the linear approximation of the function at the point (-7, 4).

My Day

After 2 years of evolution and optimization, this is my routine. I am tweaking to make it more interesting and natural.

Wake up at 0730.
This gives 2 hours to fizzle, watch the sun rise above Sai Kung, enjoy breakfast slowly, comment on my day to the rommate and check homework due that day. Also go to business departments to get China Daily, Epoch Times, 经济日报.

Go to classes.
Get someone to eat lunch with me while doing so.

Go to lunch.
Randomly pick something. They all cost more or less the same. Tastes are average.

Digest lunch.
Revise next lesson while at it.

More Classes
Until late afternoon...

Homework time!
Goal is to skirmish the TODO list, down a few tasks. Read slashdot.

Entertainment Please.
As I lose concentration in the late afternoon, I do the fun stuff of the day. Like go shoot bullseyes with crappy bows and arrows with the Archery Club, or public forum on some socio-economic-political issue.

Go to Dinner.
More fun, but like serious fun.
Team meetings and programming done here while I digest, until I slip into a semi-dream state.

Watch a movie.
By now, its like 10pm. Time to end the day.
If I have too much to do, I pick off the most rewarding task and complete it. Otherwise, I watch a movie to provoke creaticity its also the most creative time of the day, as the rigidities of logic are too much effort to uphold.

Sleep.
Hear my roommate pray before bedtime in some language I dont comprehend. It helps me sleep better.

Routines

I seem to have fallen into a routine.
It crept up on me and just touched me.
I said, "But I don't want a routine!"
And off I go to break it.

There is no difference between Mainland and Hong Kong people

Anything saying otherwise is just trolling or using an unfair comparison. Because if you look at people in the same economic group or social group, they cant be that different-especially if they are in HK.
We like money, they like money.
We want nice jobs and opportunities, they(mainland students) want PhDs.
Theyre scared of falling off mountains, HK Kids are scared of mountains.

The only difference is language, but the fact is both HK and mainland students hate English and want to use their own languages.

Another one is grades. They get better grades. But thats because they have to better to get in here. So really, the answer here is to get them in your projects and have them teach you how to do better.

Anyway, its also counterproductive, giving HK a bad (and false) reputation. We want them on our side so they are more likely to care about HK events, and love their freedom here.

The Lamma Island Crash Accident

A lot has been said about this. But I hope the government doesn't say too much, or they're not going to get the few critical factors that lead to this.

- Hong Kong people rush too much. In this case, they were rushing over to watch fireworks. They are not the only ships to do this. When people are rushing, they forget about lots of things and get tunnel vision.

- From point 1, they were probably sailing too fast at the time, and not in great visibility, at night.

- The ship that hit in the front leads a very fast deceleration. Maybe captains should be trained how to crash ships safely? A small change in angle may have decreased the sudden deceleration. (Just as one learns to safely fall off a horse in horse-riding?)

- Probably a lot of casualties had head injuries. Protect your braincase so you are not knocked unconscious and brace.

- Ships should have quick release seat belts.

- HK mostly has collisions. If they solve this problem, there would be less accidents. (Eg. The Ukrainian tugboat collision in 2008.)

- There's very little time to put on any life jackets unless you're close to one. Locate yourself close to them and the exits so you don't get caught in the struggle. If there is no way you can get to them, just hug some distinctively colored objects and try to stick with other survivors.


- Travel by ship is very safe compared to by car in HK. And we were rushing up some hill to watch fireworks too.

Despite this tragedy, 2 people are feeling very lucky right now.

- The white-haired man we were hiking with in Aberdeen/Peak: HK Electric engineer who just retired. He left HK for the US that day.

- My Dad: His position was in Maritime Safety and Accident Investigations. A high-profile accident of this casualty rate would be a very big investigation indeed.

At least this accident lead to some happy people....

Rules of software engineering

Rules of software engineering:

- Be the guy who starts off the project. It doesn't take much, but most people find that difficult. It's well worth the effort.

- When stuck, always ask for help. When really stuck, do whatever you need to do to get that assistance. Never just sit there and think - that leads to other people not knowing what you're up to and though your solution may be correct, it does not work with the others.

- Do what you're good at first. You do no justice if you hog the parts you find hard, because chances are, somebody does it better than you.

- "Be patient and think through it." This is the most weird part - you're under all sorts of deadlines, but still have to be patient and thinking. Yet, it is precisely because your intuition cannot handle that "problem" that it becomes one.

- You can plan all you want, but from my experience, a string of difficulties will lead to unaccounted delays. So, you have to know what your capabilities are.