The Megapixels

The pleasantness of pictures.
(When raw pictures are good enough - i.e. no photoshopping)

Melbourne night skyline, across the Yarra

The tree outside the Med building

Me in Crystal Apartment(?), Gold Coast

The morning beach in Gold Coast, from high above

Double rainbow in Melbourne

The Ink and the Paper

Or, my observation of the role of colour contrast.

When we're given lined A4 papers for an exam, what's on the paper? (Lines, duh.)

Before we turn on the power for our computers, what's on the screen? (And you wouldn't see this without shading it.)

Back when we were still kids, and the lights were turned off, what is it that we see? Or, do not see?

Ink and paper is serving a lot of functions in our world today. Not just exam papers and web pages, but many others: money, legal documents, academic certificates... more.

I'm just truly amazed by the effect of colour contrast in facilitating effective communication, even communication with self (diaries, blogs, lecture notes, etc). For my first PBL case last semester, I just write G6PDD. And it tells of a whole plethora of things from the symptoms such as lethargy and weakness, to its cause which is a single enzyme deficiency, as well as the mechanisms linking them together. We learned that 400 million people globally are affected by this X-linked, recessively inherited condition.

And the fact that I can tell which keys to press to produce this post (as we all can). I think it's immensely amazing. The human brain and eye has got some real super-duper processing power.

Otherwise we would probably click on emails in our Inbox that are really just spam and contain nothing sensible, and waste our living time doing so.

Minggu yang baru berlalu

Tiba masanya untuk saya mengerjakan kemahiran menulis dalam Bahasa Melayu...

Kes tutorial Pembelajaran Berasaskan Masalah (PBL) minggu ini berkisar tentang diabetes mellitus Jenis Kedua. Mungkin kamu pernah mendengar tentang rintangan insulin, kegemukan dan tekanan darah tinggi. Semuanya berkaitan dengan kes diabetes jenis ini.

Tidak lupa juga tentang tarikh akhir untuk menghantar esei Pengamalan Kesihatan (HP), lebih kurang dua minggu dari sekarang. Saya agak lega kerana telah memilih soalan untuk dijawab (terdapat 5 pilihan) dan sudah memikirkan beberapa soalan yang sudah pasti berkait rapat dengan kehendak soalan tersebut. Esei itu berkaitan dengan penyisihan dalam masyarakat dan kesannya kepada individu yang tersisih.

Saya tiba agak lewat (15 minit lambat) ke kuliah 8.00 pagi semalam. Namun, secara keseluruhannya, saya berpuas hati dengan persiapan saya ke setiap kuliah pada minggu ini. Nota dan ringkasan kuliah sempat saya baca dan serap sebelum mendengarnya disampaikan oleh pensyarah.

Lawatan ke hospital pada hari Rabu lepas juga amat menarik kerana hampir setiap ahli kumpulan (8 orang di bawah seorang doktor) berpeluang melakukan pemeriksaan fizikal (PE) ke atas 3 orang pesakit di wad. Pemeriksaan itu melibatkan bahagian tangan, muka, leher, belakang, dan yang paling penting, bahagian perut (abdomen). Doktor yang mengajar kami itu sangat bermurah hati memanjangkan masa kami di hospital, dengan menambah 45 minit. Sejam setengah menjadi dua jam suku, dan ini sangat baik sebagai pendedahan kepada hakikat dunia perubatan.

Sampai di sini sahajalah untuk kali ini.

Saya sebenarnya berfikir untuk menulis dalam loghat/dialek Sabah juga...tapi lain kali sahajalah.

A Quote

Credits to Randy Pausch, Professor, Carnegie-Mellon; and to Jeffrey Zaslow.

Chapter 32
Don't Complain, Just Work Harder

Too many people go through life complaining about their problems. I've always believed that if you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you'd be surprised by how well things can work out.
...
...
...
The message in their stories is this: Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier.

An excerpt from his book, The Last Lecture.

Randy died of pancreatic cancer on 25th July 2008. (I got the book just three days earlier.)

Just when I thought ~

~ that I suffered the worst thing that could happen, I thought again. Well, it's definitely not the worst thing that could have happened, but it did feel really bad at that time.

I was just done in the Uni computer lab. It was already dark at 6pm. I walked over to my bicycle and unlocked it. My hands motioned almost subconsciously to switch on the bike lights.

Huh?

My front white lamp, powered by 2 AA batteries, which was supposed to intermittently flash as I rode my bike at night, was not in its rightful place. On the handlebar I only saw the reflective white "lamp", which is not even a proper lamp. My back light, red, was gone too. What remains was the piece of rubber used to hold it in place.

My front and back lights, with the screw, nut, batteries and everything with them, got stolen. I rode back home feeling sad that night.

Two nights later, as I talked about it with another friend who bikes regularly to school, I got the shock of a week ("of a lifetime" = excessive overstatement). It's this friend's third, mind me, third bike that he rides right now. Two got stolen earlier this year.

I've lost only two bike lights.


Oh well, I do hope that whoever it was who unscrewed my white and red bike lights made perfect good use of them. The world is after all a place where stuff change hands from one owner to the next, sometimes legally and sometimes not.

Just when I thought that I suffered the worst blow, I was reassured that people have been through worse.

4 Dimensions

A short post on a Friday afternoon.

To meet someone who lives somewhere else, I have to specify the place and time.

Like the Med building.

Along Grattan Street.

Corner of Elizabeth Street (or Royal Parade).

7th floor.

At 9am.

I would meet that person if my location along these 4 axes (3 space, 1 time) intersect. I wouldn't if I turn up at 9pm; well, maybe I would, but with a different person.

(Credits to Brian Greene, who illustrated this sort of example in The Elegant Universe.)

And something about time and about the Beijing 2008 Olympics.