LewsTheri's

2007-10-07T00:56:00.000+10:00

Our Wii Avatars!!

Pa ...

Ma ...

Myself ...

Pa and ma playing a game of virtual ice hockey on Wii ...

Pa is blue, and ma is red. Pa leading with 7-6 ...

7-7 ... a very close game ...

Pa wins eventually ...

Taken during their trip to Australia at the end of September. They are having a lot of fun with Wii!!

2007-07-14T23:31:00.000+10:00

Just this evening we met at the Golden Century Seafood Chinese Restaurant in Sydney's Chinatown to celebrate Emily's birthday. July is usually a busy month for us as a lot of our friends celebrate their birthdays in this month, including myself. Good chance to catch up with old friends.

Here are some of the photos we took the dinner on the night before my birthday at a Jap/Kor Yakiniku-style restaurant. It's a buffet, but more like an order-everything-you-want-within-90-minutes-but-with-surcharge-if-there-were-leftovers type dinner. :)

The happy couple :)

Emily and Ian busy grilling meat...Can't really see their face due to the smoke!

Delicious marinated beef, chicken and seafood ready for gulping!

And don't forget the cake!

And here are the photos we took at Emily's birthday. There were six of us - Emily, Ian, Ben Son, Wan Jun, Aya and myself.

At the start of the dinner, everyone's smiling but they were actually just waiting for the food to come...

The Swarovski mobile accessory we bought together for Emily. Bling Bling...

Emily with the raspberry-flavoured birthday cake from Le Renaissance, a French bakery and cafe at The Rocks.

Emily and Ian both very satisfied...

Aya and myself...

2007-06-20T01:28:00.000+10:00

Check out these fantastic Transformer Nike toy shoes!

Link

2007-06-01T14:27:00.000+10:00

New sightings of Loch Ness monster! Darn... we missed it by slightly more than a month :)

Link

2007-05-30T22:31:00.001+10:00

Last weekend four of us from Canberra, XW, CH, Jes and myself, drove up to Sydney for a house-warming party at Emily's new place. Instead of a barbie, we had a `deep-frying' session using the fryer we bought for her last year. Spring rolls, chicken wings, dumplings, wedges, etc. mostly deep fried stuff as well as some curry chicken.

It was an enjoyable afternoon, as this was a long overdued gathering of friends we met at university who have since gone their separate ways. Good to catch up with some old friends. For dinner we had Kobe Jones, and the next day, we went yum cha in Bondi Junction. So it was purely a good food and good company weekend :)

Anyhow, at the house-warming party, I showed them a funny Japanese prank show I stumbled upon at Youtube. It's so crazy that it's worth showing it here. Enjoy!

2007-05-22T22:47:00.000+10:00

A friend of mine, Gary, who is also a Ph.D. student, took many photos of the Fontana di Trevi, and made them into a larger pan view photo, which is awesome! Check it out!

Click on the photo for a larger view.

Unfortunately I had trouble uploading the 360-degree pan view of St. Peter's Square in the Vatican so you can't view it here

2007-05-20T00:54:00.000+10:00

Quick post: IT'S OFFICIAL! BLIZZARD IS WORKING ON STARCRAFT 2! REJOICE!

Check it the following videos:

Units Explanation Part 1

Units Explanation Part 2

Cinematic Trailer

2007-05-16T16:39:00.000+10:00

Starcraft 2 coming soon?

Recently, I've read rumours on the Internet that Blizzard may be working on Starcraft 2, the sequel to the best real-time strategy game ever in the world. Whether this is true, no one sures for sure, but in case you missed it, Blizzard Entertainment is employing a new strategy on informing the public about its up and coming project. Its main page, Blizzard.com, showcases a timeline of its past video game titles with the last entry being a curiously glowing question mark.

Well, the page got updated again and what do you know, it now headlines the original StarCraft and Sarah Kerrigan's infamous lines, "I am the Queen of Blades. And my stare alone would reduce you to ashes." After denying it for so long, it was confirmed a couple of weeks ago that Blizzard is indeed making a new SC game.

However, it is still uncertain if StarCraft 2 will remain true to its roots and be a RTS title. There were some rumors a while back that Blizzard is planning to make it a MMO, much like what it did to the Warcraft franchise. All speculations will be ended soon as a formal announcement will be conducted at the Blizzard World Invitational two days from now in Korea.

Ask me how I know... well, I've been following the SC professional tournaments in Korea on the Internet.

Who knows? It was rumoured that by the end of the year, we may have the new SC 2 as Christmas pressies!

2007-05-13T01:20:00.000+10:00

This is funny...

2007-05-09T14:24:00.000+10:00

Okay, this will be a long entry... be warned :)

Now that I am back from a month-long vacation, I realised that it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be getting back to work straight away. I guess it's also because the trip was sufficiently long to `de-stress and make me whole' again.

Currently working on a new paper for a conference this year. Yes, I will be flying again soon this July to Harbin, China. But it will only be a short and direct conference trip. No stopping, rest or visiting.

At least it would not be as fast as Aya, who will be leaving for South Korea this Sunday for work for a week. And we (her mom, Emily and myself) are apparently more excited about the Korea trip than her! You see, they are either crazy about Korean movies, or nuts about Korean food. As for myself, I'm a fan of Korean Starcraft progamers. I'm always lurking around Youtube following the `e-sport'.

Anyway, after leaving beautiful Venice and Italy, we first reached London. But the next morning, the four of us (including my brother and his friend who is also visiting) took a flight to Aberdeen, Scotland. We decided while in Italy that we would do some travelling in Scotland. Spent 4 nights there, in various places. Believe me, after visiting Italy, it feels like there are no cities, with a long history or modern, that will match Rome, Venice or Florence. Not even London. Just my personal opinion though.

So instead of spending about a week in London, we decided to spend four days in the highlands of Scotland and only a few days in London. The photos here are from our journey (we rented a car for our entire trip) in Scotland, starting from Aberdeen in the east, through to the famous Glenfiddich (which means `the valley of the stag', I think) Scotch whiskey distillery in Dufftown and Inverness, then to driving along Loch Ness (oohh..), to the western Isle of Skye, south to Fort Williams, and finally south-east to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.

Interesting name for a jam (due to its three-coloured texture, of course)!

At the beautiful Glenfiddich distillery... they are really happy for tourists to come. Free entry and an hour-long tour of the distillery, free sample of their Scotch whiskies. Ladies' washroom is amazing, with antique chairs and tables as well as a real fireplace and chimney next to the washing basins (according to Aya)!

Ruins of an ancient castle next to the Glenfiddich (pronounced with a hard ch, same as Loch Ness)

Inverness, a town at the river mouth of river Ness as it flows into the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland. The river flows from nearby Loch Ness and the Caledonian Canal connects Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy.

Amazing scenery along Loch Ness, and no, we did not spot any monster!

Ruins of Urquhart Castle, overlooking Loch Ness. It's huge!

One of the many ancient burial mounds scattered across Scotland, apparently from the distant past before Chistianity.

Dogfalls, one of the bush-walking/trekking sites we visited...

Eilean Donan Castle, situated near the Isle of Skye...

View from Portree, the largest town in Skye, and one of the places we stopped for a night.

Prawns (or more likely scampi) we had in Portree...

The Storr (not the Malaysian supermarket chain, The Store) is a rocky hill on the Trotternish peninsula of the Isle of Skye. Its more famous landmark is `The Old Man of Storr'... it's that isolated towering rock facing the east.

We actually hiked up to just beside The Old Man of Storr. Took us about an hour to reach there and it's worth it. View up there is magnificent!

Another landmark on the Isle of Skye, the name eluded my memory. Scary place to be up there looking down. It's probably a vertical cliff for more than a hundred metres!

Another bush-walking on another day close to Portree.

Drove past Eilean Donan Castle again as we left Skye...

Another Loch...

We reached Edinburgh on the fourth day and spend one night there. That's Edinburgh Castle, which sits atop Castle Rock, a now-extinct volcano, overlooking the city of Edinburgh. The entry fee of 12 pounds per person (I think) is definitely worth it!

The city of Edinburgh... which is our last top in Scotland before taking a 5-hour train ride back to London.

We thought that this Scotland trip was really good. It's a nice transition from the ancient cities of Italy to the majestic natural sceneries (most of the time) of the Scottish highlands, aside from the wonderful traditional Scottish and English food such as Haggis , Black Pudding, Kippers and different ales. And strangely enough, out of four days in Scotland, there were three sunny (at least not rainy, maybe a bit cloudy) days, which is phenomenal as Scottish weather is well-known for cold, rainy days.

Anyway, I reckon this is the longest entry I've ever written on this blog. So I'll end here and hopefully, post photos of our trip in London another time.

2007-04-22T02:37:00.000+10:00

Here are some more photos of our Italy trip. We left Rome on the 17th for Pontedera, a small town next to Pisa. I had a visit to the CRIM Lab at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa on the 18th, but we managed to spend some time in Pisa, visiting the Leaning Tower.

We also spent a day in Florence and we left for Venice on the 19th. Food was great, at least I enjoyed all of our meals. Aya's been complaining that she's getting fat with so much cheese and dairy products and desserts! Enjoy the photos!

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

One of the many 'small' cars in Italy

The Campanile (bell tower) in Florence, next to the Duomo

The Duomo (cathedral church) in Florence, Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

Piazza della Repubblica of Florence

Palazzo Vecchio, at the Piazza della Signoria in Florence (next to the well-known Uffizi)

Florence city views (there are actually extended buildings on the bridge if you look carefully)

Venetian Pannacotta and Tiramisu we had the first night in Venice!

One of the many pastry shops in Venice

Piazza San Marco, Venice

The famous Rialto Bridge in Venice

Aya picking one big nose!!

Basilica di San Marco, and the Campanile (bell tower) of Venice

Our Gondola trip along the canals of Venice!

2007-04-17T05:21:00.000+10:00

More photos of Rome!!

St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican

St. Peter's Basilica (with Aya 'holding' the obelisk)

Inside the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano

One of the statues of the 12 apostles in Basilica di San Giovanni

Piazza Della Repubblica

Louis Vutton shop under renovation in Rome

Spiralling staircase in the Vatican Museum (with Aya in the photo)

Gelati!!!

Colleseum 1

Colleseum 2

Fontana (Fountain) di Trevi

Pantheon

Somewhere near the ancient Roman Forum

We will be leaving for Pisa and Florence tomorrow. Ciao!!

2007-04-12T03:41:00.000+10:00

Buon Giorno!

Photos of Rome!

Piazza di Spagna (The Spanish Steps)

Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica

Colleseum

Angelicum University (where ICRA'07 is held)

Streets of Rome (with lots of tourists)

Piazza Vittorie Emanuele (close to the Ancient Imperial Rome area)

The ruins of ancient Rome

2007-03-28T23:43:00.000+10:00

I will be in Penang for a couple of days from 1 April 2007 to 6 April 2007. It was only meant to be a short visit before I head to Rome, Italy for a conference. If anyone, any old friends, will be in BM during those days, and are interested in meeting up, e-mail me or call my BM house phone number 04-5396015, so that we can perhaps meet up some time during the visit.

Look forward to this trip!

2007-03-22T23:56:00.000+11:00

Anger at ANU honour for Lee

Australian National University academics are outraged at a decision by university management to bestow an honorary Doctorate of Laws on former prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew in Canberra next Wednesday.

Canberra Times Article

Related Links
Andrew Walker - ANU Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
singabloodypore.blogspot.com
uncleyap-news.blogspot.com
www.roadtosurfdom.com

2007-03-22T13:39:00.000+11:00

The other day we were having coffee and hot chocolate at Max Brenner, which is a franchise specialising in chocolate drinks and sweats dubbed as "a chocolate laboratory, bar, shop and restaurant meant to fulfill the deep dark fantasies of chocoholics".

Now the franchise calls itself "Max Brenner, Chocolate by the Bald Man". And interestingly, its logo is that of a bald man:

Can you think of what it reminds you of? I'm sure everyone around my age would have easily remembered a certain character in an video arcade game ...

Here are some pictures to jiggle your memory slightly ...

Yes, it does look like Dhalsim from Street Fighter. That's my first impression when I saw the Max Brenner logo. :)

2007-03-14T23:59:00.001+11:00

Check out these people performing with gigantic Tesla Coils!

2007-03-14T23:45:00.001+11:00

Have a Happy Pi Day!

Link

2007-03-10T01:25:00.000+11:00

Hot Air Balloon Trip Over Canberra

Last Sunday, Aya and I went for our first hot air balloon trip, with free vouchers courtesy of a friend. Otherwise the trip could probably costs about 150-200 bucks per person. We had to wake up around 5 am, to meet with the people who runs the hot air balloon business as well as others going on the ride.

Once all the paperwork had been completed, we set off in their four-wheel drives to a suburb in North Western Canberra, due to the direction of the wind. That morning there were a total of 5 balloons setting off. Each of them can carry up to ten passengers.

It took about 45 minutes to set up the balloons.

By the time our balloon's ready for take-off, it was around 8 am. Here's a video of our take-off.

The whole trip took around an hour. I think it was a good trip for photo-taking, but it's kinda boring after a while. And it can get really hot, due to the sun rising and the hot gas on the balloon. By the end of the trip, we were extremely exhausted and couldn't wait to go home and sleep.

Some photos I took during the ballon trip.

2007-03-09T12:36:00.000+11:00

Listing the World's Top Billionaires in 2007.
They’re getting younger, wealthier and 60 percent made their own money

Link

2007-03-02T17:42:00.000+11:00

Updates on hailstorm recovery from ANU!

Storm Damage $ Building Opening - 2 March 2007 5 pm
ANU Events Affected by Storm Damage - 2 March 2007
From the Vice-Chancellor -2 March 2007

2007-03-01T11:20:00.000+11:00

Two nights ago, the worst hailstorm I have ever witnessed hit Canberra. Hailstones as large as golf balls and 50km/h winds lashed the city for less than 30 minutes but left the city a metre deep in hail in some places.

The storm caused the closure of the ANU, several schools, roads and offices in Canberra. My lab and office, which is situated on the top floor of RSISE, also had been severely damaged by the storm. The sun roof I was very fond of, gave way and collapsed. Computers, equipments and personal items in the lab as well as other rooms on the top floor were soaked wet and damaged. The worst is that my experimental test bed suffered significant damage due to water leakage into power supply units, electronic amplifier circuits, and the computer I used for testing and implementing control systems. It is likely that the test bed is unsalvageable, although the magnitude of damage is yet to be determined. It is fortunate that I have completed all of the experiments required and obtained the results, but if I find that there is a gap between results for the thesis or additional experiments are required, I am basically f##ked.

It will be a few days before we can assess the situation and the damage caused by the storm. Lectures, tutorials and access to ANU are mostly cancelled until the end of th week.

Here are some photos of the aftermath of the storm:

Some related links:
Hailstorm - Wiki
Reuters - News
The Australian - News
Canberra Times - News 1
Canberra Times - News 2
Felix's Photo Link
Andrew's Photo Link

2007-02-21T16:46:00.000+11:00

Here's a funny article from the newspaper today ...
____________________________________________________________________________________
Bow before a divine boo-boo and honour gift of the gaffe
THE WRY SIDE
Emma Tom
February 21, 2007

TO err is human. To do it while breaking out of prison, robbing a bank or trying to guard a collection of antique children's toys with a teddy bear-obsessed doberman is divine.
Stuffing up continues to be one of the few human headaches technology just can't eliminate. Sure, we can reduce some of the wreckage by employing smoke alarms, anti-lock braking systems and those virtual pilots that keep aircraft aloft when plane drivers accidentally lock themselves out of cockpits during toilet breaks (more on this later).
But it's testimony to the joyous chaos and wonderful imperfection of human nature that a certain number of outlandish screw-ups are inevitable.

Here, then, are a few of the best "Oh, bugger" moments that have occurred around the world in recent times.

Medicine

* London, 2003: A cocky cosmetic surgeon is struck off the medical register after shortening a patient's penis during what is supposed to be an enlargement procedure. (Insert Homer Simpson-esque "d'oh" here.)

Drugs

* England, 2000: Thieves break into a house and try to snort a pot of powder they find on a mantelpiece because it looks like cocaine. Unfortunately the stash turns out to be the cremated remains of the owner's newfoundland dog, Charlie, whose ability to promote excited, self-centred soliloquies at celebrity parties turns out to be decidedly minimal.

* Germany, 2006: A 52-year-old marijuana connoisseur tries in vain to get a refund for $645 worth of crappy pot he buys from his dealer before turning to the police for help. He is charged with drug offences after telling officers that his purchase is unsmokable.

Crime

* Brazil, 2005: A gang of 67 prisoners spends months planning a break-out and digging anescape tunnel only to emerge in the prisonyard, where they are greeted by giggling guards.

* Austria, 2006: A man pockets a bunch of jewellery from a house before making the all-too-common mistake of drinking a bottle of vodka and taking a nap on one of the beds. The homeowner returns to find this Goldilocks fan still snoring and calls the cops.

* Japan, 2006: A Japanese bank robber asks tellers for advice on how best to proceed with his hold-up before meekly obeying a request to leave and accidentally stabbing himself in the leg with his knife during his nervous exit.

Culture

* England, 2006: A visitor to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge trips down some stairs and destroys a set of priceless 300-year-old Chinese vases on a window sill. He spends a long time yelling at his shoelaces.

* Cyberspace, 2006: The Movie Mistakes website finds nearly 300 errors in The Return of the King, the final instalment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Among other continuity issues, eagle-eyed fans report that a scar on Frodo's face changes size and position and temporarily relocates from his right cheek to his left on the slopes of Mount Doom.

Animals

* England, 2006: A lively doberman pinscher called Barney shreds 100 stuffed bears - including a $113,000 teddy that belonged to Elvis - while helping guard a children's museum. Barney is relieved of his duties and now spends his time chicken guarding (also known as chicken chasing) on a farm.

Aviation

* The US, 2004: A National Guard fighter jet accidentally strafes the roof of a primary school near Atlantic City with gunfire. The embarrassed dude up in the pointy bit says he meant to shoot at a target in a military reservation near Washington.

* Canada, 2006: A pilot who needs to relieve himself mid-flight finds himself locked out of the cockpit while 50 horrified passengers watch on. After banging on the door for a while, he asks the crew to help him wrench the recalcitrant hatch off its hinges before returning to his allocated seat for landing.

Religion

* Scotland, 2006: A vicar forgets to disconnect his microphone during a mid-service loo break. After being heralded with a series of booms, splashes, groans and echoes, one of the parishioners confesses to letting out a wee laugh. Clearly this forgiving soul knew that, despite our best intentions, s--- really will continue to happen.
____________________________________________________________________________________

2007-02-17T22:30:00.001+11:00

Happy Chinese New Year!

Aya and Yee Harn

2007-02-10T16:49:00.000+11:00

The Swarm - A Novel of the Deep

I've recently read the above novel by Frank Schatzing.

First off, it is a sci-fi book, so some of the details are purely fiction. But it contains large numbers of true facts and details in regards to our ecosystem, especially about the oceans. Oceans cover about 3 quarters (71%) of the Earth's surface, and nearly half of the world's marine waters are over 3,000 meters deep. Most of them still remain unexplorable. Who knows what can be found in the depths?

Anyway, the story talks about a global ecological disaster, which are brought about by the acts of man. And the world brings together a large group of scientists and engineers from a variety of backgrounds and areas, in order to solve the mysteries that may cause the destruction of mankind.

Here's a synopsis of the novel :
__________________________________________________________________________
Off the Peruvian coast a fisherman drowns, dragged to his death by a mysterious underwater current. He is not alone. Over the coming weeks, thousands like him will die each day - killed at sea, killed on beaches, killed by oceans that no longer behave in a way that mankind can predict.

These deaths are not coincidence - and from the moment an enormous unidentifiable form flashes across the radar of two North Sea scientists, it is clear they are being caused by a natural force more complex and more devastating than anything science is able to comprehend. Beheath the waves, something is wreaking havoc on the global ecosystem, bringing the world to the brink of destruction. It is ecological disaster on an unprecedented scale - disaster that some are determined to prevent, but others are determined to exploit in their pursuit of power.

Epic, intense and frighteningly real, Frank Schatzing's international bestseller THE SWARM is a thrilling cautionary tale for our age - a timely warning of the vulnerability of our existense in a fragile world.
__________________________________________________________________________
Highly recommended.

2007-01-29T22:53:00.000+11:00

Nothing much has been happening in my life since the New Year.

In terms of research, a good analogy of my current position is that basically I'm in the valley between two huge mountains. I've just scaled the first mountain, which is the mountain of experimental research; and now I'm about to climb the second mountain to reach my final destination, and that mountain is consolidating the research, publishing the results as well as the writing of my Ph.D. thesis.

To me right now, it's a scarily daunting task. It's like looking up at the peak and there seems to be no end to the journey. And I think that it is the wrong way to look at the mission. I have to break it down, the journey contains a mid-way station, and there are probably a few more stops in the middle as well. And that's what I plan to do.

In the mean time, I have also confirmed my attendance at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2007 in Italy (ICRA'07). The paper has been accepted so that means a month-long trip to Europe, with a short stop-over in Malaysia for a few days in early April. The conference is in Rome, starting one day after Easter Sunday, and I hope to catch a glimpse of Easter in the Vatican and Rome on that day. My trip includes a lab visit in Pisa, vacation in Rome, Florence and Venice. We may travel northeast to Paris, before visiting my brother in London and then flying home to Australia. I'm looking forward to it.

I've also started preparing my own lunches and cooking more dinners at home. These days my lunch will either be sandwiches with cheese and ham or salami, and maybe some green sandwich veges, or intentional leftovers from the previous dinner. Now that I'm not working and only getting a $500 per week stipend, I aim to save up more money for the Italy trip. I don't think I'll be able to save much, since the rent already takes up 40% of my stipend, but I hope to not use any of the money I've got in the bank for day-to-day expenses.

And believe me, I'm not a bad cook myself. I can refer several, in fact more than 10, who agrees. I hope.

Till next time!

2007-01-24T23:42:00.000+11:00

Thanks to those who shopped and bought groceries at Woolworth's on Tuesday. Woolies has managed to raise $4.7 million for drought victims and farmers from Tuesday's profits.

Link

2007-01-24T09:35:00.000+11:00

Interesting Article, but not for the faint-hearted!

_______________________________________________________________________________

What food causes flatulence?

It's happened to us all. You're standing in a lift when suddenly that silent but deadly smell spreads through the air. Michael set out to ascertain what kind of foods are most likely to cause flatulence.

The test

Toilet humour starts in our school days. Whether we're two or 20, we can find flatulence funny but this laughing gas is also a social embarrassment and a source of domestic strife.

Vic and Kathy Hanisch have survived decades of marriage — despite Vic's colon coughs. On average, men will do it 14 times a day. Vic got his title of trumpeter by letting rip at least 25 times a day.

"If I'm alone or with friends it's easier to get it out as opposed to in a shopping centre or so forth," says Vic.

"He lets it go there too and that's what really irritates me," objects Kathy. "If we are in a shopping centre, he just lets it go."

Says Vic, "But they don't stink!"

Vic blames his vegetarian diet for his wind. According to gastroenterologist Professor Terry Bolin, Vic's right. He says up to 90 percent of wind is down to the food you eat.

"Over a 24-hour period you might produce two and a half litres a day of gas and two litres is what you might find in an average party balloon that you blow up, so it's quite substantial," says Prof. Bolin.

Gas is caused by fibre, starch and some complex sugars that aren't easily digested. They're fermented by bacteria in the colon, producing hydrogen, methane and hydrogen sulphide gases. These gases are expelled as wind.

Which foods produce the most gas? Most people blame baked beans — are they right?

To find out, we enlist the help of a very accommodating bunch of guys from the local footy team.

For one day, each of our volunteers eats only one food. Simon gets the pre-match favourite, baked beans. For Clint it's veggies, especially cabbage and broccoli. Tim will be our eggs-pert. Joey does dairy and it's meat for Matt. Chris gets the plum job — fart master.

"The difficult thing with being a fart master is trying to actually count how many farts they actually do," says Chris.

Fart master Chris is being kept busy. One thing he has noticed is a variation in quality. Some are loud and some are smelly — why are they different?

"The volume influences the loudness — the greater the volume the louder the fart," says Prof. Bolin.

The smell depends on the amount of sulphur you eat. Sulphur is found in meat, eggs and some veggies. Therefore, a nice plate of sausage and egg should produce some real stink bombs — but surprisingly, only for half of us.

"The population is roughly divided into those who aren't going to produce hydrogen sulphide gas, which is the cause of the aroma, and those who do," explains Prof. Bolin. "That depends on the bacteria you've got in very large quantities in your colon."

By the end of the day Clint and his cabbage are out in front with a score of 13. He's ahead of the pre-match favourite, Simon and his baked beans on 11. A long night lies ahead for our fart master who has to stay awake in this roomful of stinkers and keep score.

The results

By morning Matt, who ate meat, is at the bottom of the table with eight farts. Next is Joey on 13 with his dairy diet. Eggs gave Tim a total of 17 and Clint's veggies ended up in second place with 29. The big winner by a long margin was Simon and the baked beans with a whopping windy score of 37.

Beans really do deserve their reputation. It seems they're a deadly combination of fibre and complex sugars — two of the three biggest wind producers. They pass straight to the colon, where the bacteria think it's party time.

Conclusion

Says Prof. Bolin, "Farting is not a symptom of disease — in fact, it's sign of good health. You're eating a healthy diet and paying the price for it by eating more fibre than next person."

The best way to fight flatulence is to limit the trigger foods; those beans; vegetables like cabbage and broccoli; smelly eggs, and fizzy drinks, which fill you up with gas.

If you're really self conscious, you could perhaps try a carbon cushion, designed to absorb those silent but deadly aromas.

If you're worried you've got a problem with excessive flatulence, talk to your doctor about it.
_______________________________________________________________________________

2007-01-18T14:08:00.000+11:00

That's what you get for obstructing construction workers :)

Link

2007-01-17T09:33:00.000+11:00

Weird Celebrity Child Names

Pity the child of a celebrity - they are quite likely to have an insane name thrust upon them as these shockers prove!

Victoria Beckham / David Beckham - Brooklyn, Romeo
Pamela Anderson / Tommy Lee - Brandon Thomas, Dylan Jagger
Gwyneth Paltrow / Chris Martin - Apple
50-Cent - Bow-TY
Paula Yates / Bob Geldof - Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom
Paula Yates / Michael Hutchence - Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lilly
Michael Jackson - Prince Michael, Prince Michael II, Paris Michael
Courtney Cox Arquette / David Arquette - Coco
Kurt Cobain / Courtney Love - Frances Bean
Johnny Depp / Vanessa Paradis - Lily-Rose Melody
Jermaine Jackson / Hazel Gordy - Jermaine Jr., Jaimy, Autumn
Simon LeBon (Duran Duran) / Yasmine Singer (Model) - Amber Rose, Saffron Sahara, Tallulah Pine
Spike Lee (Director) / Tonya Linette Lewis (Actor) - Satchel
Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue) / Donna D'errico (Baywatch) - Storm, Gunner, Frankie-Jean, Dekker-Nilson,
Frank Zappa (Singer) - Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan Moon Unit, Diva
Mia Farrow / Woody Allen - Satchel
Julia / Jamie Oliver - Daisy Boo, Poppy
Demi Moore / Bruce Willis - Rumer, Scout
Arlyn / John Phoenix - River, Leaf
Madonna / Guy Ritchie - Rocco
Sarah Ferguson / Prince Andrew - Eugenie
Angie / David Bowie - Zowie
Mel C / Jimmy Gulzar - Phoenix Chi
Eddie Van Halen / Valerie Bertinelli - Wolfgang
Peter Andre / Jordan - Junior Andre
Liv Tyler / Royston Langdon - Milo
Bono - Elijah Bob Patricus Guggi Q (that's right, one name), Jordan, Eve
Forest Whitaker - Ocean, True, Sonnet
Robert Rodriguez (Director) - Racer, Rebel, Rocket
Will Smith / Jada Pinkett Smith - Willow
Bob Marley - Ziggy
Eddie Murphy - Zola
Jason Lee - Pilot Inspektor
Jonathan Davis (Korn) - Pirate
Nicholas Cage / Alice Kim Cage - Kal-el

2007-01-15T14:31:00.000+11:00

Woolworths is donating its entire supermarket sales on the *23rd January 2007* to the drought relief. So if you need to grocery shop make sure you do it on this day and help out the drought relief program.

Link

2007-01-10T00:08:00.000+11:00

Check this out on YouTube! Created by some students at MIT, it fondly reminds me of the good old days playing RPG video console and computer games. And it's darn funny and interesting as well!

2007-01-04T23:19:00.000+11:00

A short clip/slideshow of our Xmas and New Year vacation. Enjoy!

2006-12-29T10:22:00.000+11:00

On the 23rd, Aya and I had our 'Christmas dinner' at Quay, with spectacular views of Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Our reservation was at 6.30 pm but we arrived early. So we had a walk on the promenade, taking in the beautiful scenery around The Rocks and Circular Quay. We were lucky that it didn't rain that evening, as it had been cloudy and rainy over the Christmas weekend.

Quay restaurant was located on the top level of the Overseas Passengers Terminal for those large cruise ships at The Rocks so it had the nicest views. We were given a table on the protruded section of the building, which is the tower section of the building as seen from the above photo so we have clear and wide views of the famous landmarks in Sydney, The Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

We were planning to order the chef's signature menu but we weren't feeling that hungry as we just finished a barbie at Emily's apartment at around 3 that afternoon. So we decided to order individual dishes. We started off with a special entree of the day to share. It's a lobster and abalone dish with really good shitake mushrooms and their own handmade silken tofu. It had a bit of the Chinese culinary flavour and looks as you can see from the photos, but it tasted great.

For our mains, Aya had a crispy skin murray cod with scallops, radish, tofu and shitake mushrooms. As for myself, I tried their medium rare 300-day grain fed beef with a special green peas sauce. At first I misread it as a 300g steak so I was slightly disappointed by the portion of the steak when first served. But it was good. The steak was just so juicy, moist and soft that it seemed to melt in my mouth. In the end, the portion is just nice for we wanted to try their desserts. To go with the fish, Aya had a glass of chardonnay; and I had a glass of shiraz with my steak. The meal was really nice, can't say that it's exceptionally exquisite but it's definitely at a whole different level compared to a good steakhouse or cafe. It better be as we paid good money for the meal!

A friend of Aya's recommended that we must try one of their desserts, a five-textured chocolate cake. We did and it didn't disappoint. Why given the 'five-textured' label? Well, when first served, it looked like a normal thin chocolate cake. It appeared to have three layers, a chocolate biscuit base at the bottom, a chocolate mousse layer in the middle followed by a wafer thin chocolate layer on top. It looked like a squashed donut as it had a hole in the middle. The experienced waitress then poured a hot chocolate sauce into the hole and it started to melt from the middle. As we stirred and began in the middle, we discovered that it had a white chocolate layer in the middle that had been melted away by the hot fudge. Because of the five different types of chocolate, hence the name 'five-textured chocolate cake'. It was awesome!

We also had a another dessert, a raspberry-themed sorbet and fruit dessert. But it paled compared to the chocolate cake. We also had a delicious and fruity dessert white dessert wine.

Overall, it was a wonderful dinner. Great views, good service as expected from such a restaurant. Definitely worth a try but be prepared to pay up to 100 bucks minimum including desserts and wine.

Here are some night photos we took of the surroundings.

2006-12-25T13:13:00.000+11:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Aya and I!

2006-12-21T16:42:00.000+11:00

Skydiver survived plunge!

I think he's gonna be rich with the video.

2006-12-20T23:24:00.000+11:00

I really am looking forward to this Christmas and New Year holiday. It's a time for me to just do whatever I want to do. I have like 11 days 'cause I'm leaving for Sydney this Friday and will only be back on the 2nd day of the new year.

I have even listed the things I will be doing:
- Play with our new Wii game console
- Have a barbie at Emily's place for Ian's birthday
- Have made a dinner reservation at Quay, a restaurant at the Rocks with a 3-hat chef award, another one of our pursuits for glorious food.
- Shop for new clothes, preferably some working clothes on Boxing Day
- Have dinner with some friends at I'm Angus for their nice ribs
- Do a bit of extravagant cooking at Aya's place
- Watch some cricket, though we already know that Australia retains the Ashes
- Have booked a flight to Melbourne with Aya to visit some friends there

There's also the matter of doing some work:
- Write on a comprehensive journal paper detailing most of our research and results over the past 3/4 years
- Plan my Ph.D. thesis

So 11 days doesn't seem like a long holiday now that I've got so many things to do :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, guys!

2006-12-20T15:20:00.000+11:00

San su's so funny in this video. Check it out! Basically it's a lucky draw for a variety of prizes. It starts from the cheapest prizes to the more expensive ones. So basically you'd want to have your name called out later than sooner. It's just a funny scene to see him fooling around. :)

2006-12-19T18:54:00.000+11:00

As I mentioned previously, my supervisor and I gave a quite successful departmental seminar on 12 December 2006 on our research and results on Shape Memory Alloy actuator control over the past 4 years. If anyone is interested, we have uploaded a video clip of the seminar together with the seminar slides on the web.

Note that the video had been recorded such that we are visible in the clip instead of the seminar slides on the projector screen. But it's not a problem as the slides are available for download. The more important issue is that audio from the clip is pretty good so you can hear our seminar as well as watch our body language.

However, the video clip file size is pretty huge, approximately 175 MB. Also, in the middle of the seminar, there was a technical fault with the slides so there was a short pause in my talk.

Link

Any suggestions or comments welcomed.

2006-12-18T15:03:00.000+11:00

Robot Kitchen in Hong Kong

Photo by Paul Yeung/Reuters

2006-12-15T12:51:00.000+11:00

Here's another funny Chinese menu with English translations.

link

2006-12-13T17:55:00.000+11:00

The 10 most bizarre people in the world. Check it out!

link

2006-12-12T20:03:00.000+11:00

I have been busy the last few days. Aya's mom was in Canberra last week so I brought her around town to visit some friends. Then we drove up to Sydney on Friday. It was Aya's company dinner and we had promised to go together.
On Saturday we took a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach. It was a 30-minute trip so I had plenty of opportunity to take photos along the way with my N93. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy that day so some of the photo did not turn out good. But here are some of the nice ones.

Compare the top two photos of Opera House with the bottom three. Look great in 'Negative' mode, don't they?

The last few days had also been a time of eating out because aunty is a good food lover. So we brought her around city, trying out different cuisines, from restaurants which we are also fond of. Here are some photos of our visits and the food we had:

Restaurant: My Angus
Location: Darling Harbour, Sydney
Food: Pork rib rack, Grilled barramundi, Greek salad

Activity: Ferry ride from Circular Quay to Manly Beach
Duration: 30-minute
Price: $12.40 Adult Return Ticket

Location: Manly Beach, Sydney

Activity: Looking at sea gulls hovering in the air, targeting unsuspecting beach-goers and their food
Location: Manly Beach, Sydney

Location: Sydney Fish Market, Pyrmont, Sydney
Food: Grilled swordfish, Prawn skewers, scallops, tuna and salmon sashimi, lobster mornay

Restaurant: Kobe Jones
Location: Kings Street Wharf, Darling Harbour, Sydney
Food: Lolly Pop Roll (shown below), Baked Dynamite Scallops, Volcano Roll, No. 1 Special, Unagi Somen Noodles,

We also had Yum Cha in Chinatown as well as Korean food in a Korean restaurant called 'Madang'. You'd never find it because you have to walk into an alley and make a turn so you can't really see the restaurant front from the main street. But it is always packed. We had to wait for about 30 minutes to get a table for three. Food was delicious!

I rushed back on Monday morning because I had a departmental seminar to prepare and present on Tuesday. More about that later.

2006-12-06T00:23:00.000+11:00

An article on Forbes.com about one of my favourite authors, Robert Jordan, who writes the famous fantasy series of The Wheel of Time (WoT).

Forbes.com has published an article on their website which profiles Robert Jordan, his illness, and the outstanding support that his fans have shown. Several WoT fan sites are mentioned, including Dragonmount.

The article is filled with some great insight, and includes a discussion of the fate of the final Wheel of Time novel, A Memory of Light.

Two cool phrases from the article:

There are readers, and then there are fans. Readers offer condolences when a favorite author falls ill. Fans offer bone marrow.

The Wheel of Time is like Lord of the Rings on steroids.

More information on the series The Wheel of Time:
Dragonmount
Wikipedia

2006-12-05T19:46:00.000+11:00

Australia Wins the Second Ashes Test!

It was one of the best turn arounds in test crickets. By the end of yesterday, a draw was the best result Australia could hope for but the performance by the Australian team today blows our mind away!

Here's a news excerpt from ninemsn.com.au
____________________________________________________________________________________
Shane Warne called it the greatest Test he'd ever played and Ricky Ponting was named man-of-the-match, as Australia completed an extraordinary six-wicket win in the second Ashes Test in Adelaide.

Led by Mike Hussey's unbeaten half-century, Australia were largely untroubled in chasing 168 off 36 overs, charting the path to an almost unassailable two-nil series lead in the final hours of day five.

Earlier Warne was the star — securing four wickets — as England crumbled for just 129, for whom Paul Collingwood played a defiant hand, finishing with 22 not out in an innings which lasted nearly three hours.

Day five belonged to Australia from the opening overs.

A nervous England contributed to their own downfall with a defensive approach, and were also unlucky to lose the early wicket of opener Andrew Strauss.

Replays showed he'd missed the ball when given out caught in close by Hussey, off Warne.

But his departure unhinged the tourists who then capitulated, led by the needless and critical runout of Ian Bell.

The England number three played to Michael Clarke at point, set-off for a run, started and stopped, and by the time he'd decided to go, was well out at the bowlers end.

Australia were relentless from then on.

First innings centurion Kevin Pietersen was bowled around his legs by Warne and, when Brett Lee accounted for Andrew Flintoff, England were plunging toward defeat.

Collingwood stood tall for 119 deliveries but no one could stay with him.

After lunch Matt Hayden caught Geraint Jones off Lee and assisted in Warne's 693rd test wicket, to remove Ashley Giles.

Warne then bowled Hoggard and Glenn McGrath trapped Steve Harmison and James Anderson LBW to complete the rout.

Australia were always odds on in the chase, and fittingly, it was Australia's top player in 2006, Mike Hussey who had the final say, hitting the winning runs to finish on 61 not out, as Australia went two-nil up with 19 balls to spare.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Australia now leads 2-0 in the 2006-2007 Ashes Series.

2006-12-05T19:34:00.000+11:00

Wonderful Christmas Lights Displays!

If you're in Canberra, you shouldn't miss this impressive Christmas Lights Displays in the suburb of Bonython in Tuggeranong.

When you reach Bonython, just follow the flow of cars. It will lead you right to the house. Make sure you make a gold-coin donation for the charity once you get there.

2006-11-23T13:22:00.000+11:00

The 2006-2007 Ashes Series have officially started today with the First Test currently being held in the Brisbane Cricket Ground. This is one of the oldest and most pretigious international cricket tournament in the world and it has been played between England and Australia since 1882.

I am not a fanatic of cricket but I do know the rules and news of cricket.

The current Ashes tournament is held in Australia this year over a series of 5 Tests, and each Test is played over a number of days, usually 5. The country that wins the most Tests will be the winner of the tournament and be awarded a larger replica of the century-old Ashes Urn because the original urn is very delicate, fragile and permanently kept in the Marylebone Cricket Club in England. If both countries draw, the previous winner will retain the honour and right to hold the Ashes. The Ashes tournament is played in each country alternatively.

Some more interesting historical facts about the Ashes from Wikipedia .....
___________________________________________________________________________________
The Ashes is a Test cricket series, played between England and Australia - it is international cricket's oldest and most celebrated rivalry dating back to 1882. It is currently played approximately biennially, alternately in England and Australia. The Ashes are held by the country which last won a series and to regain them the other country must win more Test matches in a series than the country that holds them. If a series is drawn then the country holding the Ashes retains them. The last Ashes series was played in England in 2005 when England regained The Ashes after a gap of 16 years by winning the series 2-1. The next Ashes series will be in Australia in 2006-07 with the first test starting today in Brisbane and the next series in England will be in 2009.

The series is named after a satirical obituary published in The Sporting Times in 1882 following the match at The Oval, in which Australia beat England in England for the first time. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The English media dubbed the next English tour, to Australia (1882-83) as the quest to regain The Ashes.

A small terracotta urn was presented to the England captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Melbourne women at some point during the 1882-83 tour. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, possibly a bail, ball or stump. The urn is not used as a trophy for the Ashes series, and whichever side holds the Ashes, the urn normally remains in the MCC Museum at Lord's because of its age and fragility.[1] Since the 1998-99 Ashes series, a Waterford crystal trophy has been presented to the winners.

The first Test match between England and Australia had been played in 1877, but the Ashes legend dates back only to their ninth Test match, played in 1882.

On the 1882 tour, the Australians played only one Test, at The Oval in London. It was a low-scoring game on a difficult pitch. Australia made only 63 runs in their first innings, and England, led by A N Hornby, took a 38-run lead with a total of 101. In the second innings, Australia made 122, leaving England to score only 85 runs to win. Australian bowler Fred Spofforth refused to give in, declaring, "This thing can be done." He devastated the English batting, taking the final four wickets while conceding only two runs, to leave England a mere seven runs short of victory in one of the closest and most nail-biting finishes in cricket history.

When England's last batsman went in the team needed only 10 runs to win, but the final batsman Ted Peate scored only 2 before being bowled by Boyle. The astonished crowd fell silent, not believing that England could possibly have lost by 7 runs. When what had happened had sunk in, the crowd cheered the Australians.

When Peate returned to the Pavilion he was reprimanded by W G Grace for not allowing his partner at the wicket Charles Studd to get the runs. Despite Studd being one of the best batsman in England, Peate replied, "I had no confidence in Mr Studd, sir, so thought I had better do my best."

The defeat was widely recorded in the English press. In the 31st August edition of a magazine called "Cricket: A Weekly Record of The Game" there appeared a now obscure mock obituary to "English Supremacy in the Cricket Field which expired on the 29th day of August at the Oval". Two days later, September 2, 1882 a second mock obituary, written by Reginald Brooks, appeared in The Sporting Times. This notice read as follows:

"In Affectionate Remembrance of ENGLISH CRICKET, which died at the Oval on 29th AUGUST, 1882, Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances R.I.P.
N.B. — The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia."
The English media fastened on to this notice and dubbed the English tour to Australia of 1882-83 as the quest to regain The Ashes of English Cricket. The underlying metaphor of this naming is problematic, suggesting that English cricket is a sentient being which was killed by Australia, cremated and then somehow went in search of its own remains. The three match series resulted in a 2-1 win to England, notwithstanding a fourth match, won by an Australian XI whose status remains a matter of dispute.

The term "The Ashes" then largely disappears from public use for the next twenty years; certainly, there is no suggestion that this was the accepted name for the series. Then following the successful English tour of 1903-04 the English captain, Pelham Warner published a book called "How We Recovered The Ashes". Even though the legend is not referred to in the text, the title was enough to revive public interest in the legend. The first mention of "The Ashes" in the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack occurs in 1905 and the first Wisden account of the legend was included in the 1922 edition.
___________________________________________________________________________________

2006-11-22T10:07:00.001+11:00

Here is an interesting article...

And The Richest Fictional Character Is...

2006-11-19T21:59:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was Aya's birthday. I drove down to Sydney on Friday night to give her a surprise. I think it was worth it because of her genuine surprised and shocked look when she saw me.

For her birthday, I gave her a MoPod as well as iPod socks. See the photos below.

MoPod is one of those new gadgets that lights up when there is a call or message. But other than those effects, the little 'thing' in there actually spins around.

In case you do not know what the iPod socks are, they are the little covers on the ears of Ah Pooh and the short, flabby arms and legs of the black piggy, used as a cover for iPods.

We had dinner last night at Kobe Jones at King Street Wharf in Darling Harbour. It's one of those Japanese Western fusion restaurant franchise. It was quite good actually, except that we ordered too much food. Because it was our first time there, I think perhaps we ordered too many fried stuff.

The first thing that we had was a sushi roll dish named 'Volcano Roll'. It's california roll with a cream based sauce with scallops. That was a good one, highly recommended, and it does look like a volcano.

The next one is a deep fried soft shell crab dish on some fried noodles and potatoes. The presentation was definitely good, so is the crab, but perhaps having too much fried food stops you from enjoying more.

The next one is a large dish of cold noodles with again fried unagi, something like a cold soba dish but the sauce is more of a balsamic vinegar salad dressing. The deep frying probably destroyed the original taste and texture of the unagi (eel) but the noodles is highly recommended. Really good!

The fourth one is strangely named 'Number 1 Special', probably named so because it is at the top of their signature dish list. Each one is about the size of a small tea cup but it's 7 bucks for one. It is actually 'crab salad with avocado wrapped in snapper and baked with KJ's cream sauce'.

The last one is a 'Green Tea Salmon'. It sounds nice but it is not, maybe because we were quite full then and weren't able to appreciate it. But I think the grilled salmon was too salty and the sauce was plain. That dish costs 21 buck!

I will post some more photos of us at the restaurant and the darling harbour view from the restaurant later.... Here they are...

Aya is definitely enjoying herself :P

2006-11-15T19:00:00.000+11:00

I came back from Sydney this Monday by bus. It was quite hot and dry as usual, with summer and warmer weather looming. I have taken some photos and videos of the OZ bushland and regional areas and farms, close to Goulburn, a town about 80 km from Canberra.

Then it suddenly became dark and cloudy. Indeed it started to rain as I was taking photos and videos. It's the first good sign, with a cold front blowing from Antarctica to the Eastern Australian states these few days. Who would imagine that so close to summer, the temperature today was down to perhaps 14/15 degrees Celsius in the day, and lower to 1 degree Celsius tonight. There were even snow up in the Victorian mountains.

And hopefully this cold front will bring plenty of rain to the dry regions and desperate farmers.

The videos I've taken during the journey. Notice the flat land and empty canals. This was Lake George, well, used to be anyway four or five years back. It's now just draught-affected grassland.

2006-11-14T12:46:00.000+11:00

Here's an interesting article from ninemsn.com.au about what drunk drivers in NT would do to evade the police.

__________________________________________________________________

Drunk drivers can be inventive when attempting to evade police, particularly in the Northern Territory. Some speed off down the Stuart Highway, hoping officers run out of petrol before they do. And others just decide to get out of their car and run. Another man recently climbed into the passenger's seat in an ill-fated bid to convince police the car was actually driving itself.

One young driver has managed to one-up these methods with a bizarre escape after being pulled over for suspected drink driving.

Around midnight last Saturday, Constable Dale Howe and his partner were in their patrol car when they noticed a sedan "swerving" across the road. They pulled the car over and gave the driver a breath test, in which he registered more than .08.

Everything was proceeding normally until a brown one-metre snake suddenly slithered past the car. Constable Howe was stunned by the driver's actions.

"He [the driver] ran across and picked it up."

"He grabbed the head and faced it outwards at me. I thought he was going to throw it at me or something."

After repeated warnings to drop the reptile, Constable Howe told the snake-wielding aggressor he would use capsicum spray to end the stand-off. Not willing to risk enraging the potentially venomous snake, the driver ran off into nearby bush land still holding his recently acquired pet. Constable Howe courageously gave chase, but lost him in the darkness.

Any celebrations by the escapee will be short-lived. He's a teenager well known to police for his visits to the courts. They're extremely confident he'll be caught, and are preparing to charge him with driving under the influence, assault and driving an unregistered car.

For Dale Howe it made an interesting night's work.

"It's a bit bizarre. It's not everyday someone arms themself with a snake," he said.

When police catch up with the teenager, he may want to start thinking about how he'll explain himself in court. A lawyer would no doubt advise him not to follow the example of another young man who appeared before a Darwin magistrate for exceeding the legal limit.

When asked why he drove after drinking, he replied, "Because I'm a dickhead." "That," said the magistrate, "I can't argue with."
__________________________________________________________________

2006-11-12T17:03:00.000+11:00

Up in Sydney just for two days for no apparent reason. Well, to see Aya while she studies for her Actuarial Control Cycle Part II paper next Friday, which coincidentally is her birthday. I am currently in her office, doing a bit of work, editting a video on my SMA testbed and experimental results, etc.

Some views from the office ...

2006-11-11T11:37:00.000+11:00

From TIME Magazine

Why a Christian in the White House Felt Betrayed
By DAVID KUO

For Republicans who fear that the Foley scandal might keep Evangelicals away from the polls in November, here comes another challenge--in hardcover format. A new memoir by David Kuo, former second-in-command of President Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, has the White House on the defensive with its account of an Administration that mocked Evangelicals in private while using them at election time to bolster its support. In this exclusive adaptation from the book, Kuo writes about how his White House experiences left him disillusioned about the role religion can play in politics.

____________________________________________________________________________________

I stepped into the Oval Office to find President George W. Bush prowling behind his desk looking for something. "Kuo!" he said without looking up. "Tell me about this meeting."

It was June 2003, and I was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The office had opened in the West Wing in 2001 to support the President's campaign promise of $8 billion a year in new funding for both religious and secular charities that helped the poor. That money never materialized, however, and I was increasingly stuck with the task of explaining to religious groups why the White House was so bad at helping them do good. This meeting, with a group of prominent African-American pastors who had supported Bush's plan, promised to be no different.

I began to brief the President on the pastors, recommending that he talk about the administrative reforms we had implemented, and the tax credits we were still fighting for ...

He interrupted. "Forget about all that. Money. All these guys care about is money. They want money. How much money have we given them?"

I never doubted the President's own faith or desire to help those who, like him, had once been lost in a world of alcohol or, unlike him, had struggled with poverty or drugs. Because I shared his faith and his vision of compassionate conservatism, I had been a very good soldier. When members of his senior staff mocked the plan as the "f___ing faith-based initiative," I didn't say a word. When his legislative-affairs team summarily dismissed our attempts to shoehorn our funding into the budget, I smiled and continued trying to work neatly within the system. When I heard staff privately deriding evangelical Christians because they were so easily seduced by White House power, I raised an eyebrow but not a ruckus. Like everyone else in the small faith-based office, I didn't speak too loudly or thunder too much. We were the nice guys.

Today, however, I decided to choose honesty over niceness. Two months earlier, I had been diagnosed with a brain tumor that required intensive surgery and rehabilitation. This was my first meeting with the President and Karl Rove since my return. Something about undergoing brain surgery had made me reflect about whether I had really been doing a public service by pretending that our office had been living up to its commitments.

I glanced over at Karl and turned to look the President in the eye. "Sir, we've given them virtually nothing," I said, "because we have had virtually nothing new to give."

The President had been looking down at some papers about the event, but his head jerked up. "Nothing? What do you mean we've given them nothing?" He glared. "Don't we have new money in programs like the Compassion Fund thing?"

I looked again at Karl. He seemed stunned at what I was saying. "No, sir," I told the President. "In the past two years we've gotten less than $80 million in new grant dollars." The number fell shockingly short of the $8 billion he had vowed to deliver in the first year alone.

The President's staff didn't just bad-mouth the faith-based office behind closed doors. Their political indifference also kept us from getting the funding we needed so badly. No episode captured that more clearly than the 2001 negotiations over the President's $1.7 trillion tax cut. In those final negotiations with the Senate and House, the White House voluntarily dropped a centerpiece of the President's compassion promise: a provision to allow 80% of Americans to get credit for their charitable contributions.

Now the President seemed shocked at the news that the Compassion Fund was a pittance. "What?! What do you mean?" he asked. Karl, still caught off guard, protested. "But what about the other money? You know, the money we've opened up to new charities."

I hated any clash with Karl. Especially now. The morning after my tumor diagnosis, Karl was among the first people to call. "I know what you are going through," he said. "I've spent more days and nights of my life than I can count in a cancer ward." He explained that his wife was a double breast-cancer survivor, encouraged me for the fight ahead, and offered any assistance I needed. Now, less than two months later, I was standing in front of the President exposing an ugly truth that Karl would rather not have discussed: after two years in office, we had actually spent less than 1% of what Bush had promised.

I was also contradicting our office's own spin. In an effort to divert attention from all the money that wasn't being given to faith-based groups, we had come up with the idea of highlighting the amount of money now "available" to faith-based organizations because of particular administrative reforms announced six months earlier. It was one of those wonderful Washington assertions that is simultaneously accurate and deceptive and just confusing enough to defy opposition. On the one hand, we had eliminated some ancient and patently absurd regulations, many of them promulgated under seemingly faith-phobic Democratic Administrations, that discriminated against faith-based groups simply because they might have a religious-sounding name. The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, for instance, was once denied the chance to apply for a federal grant even though it was an entirely secular organization.

On the other hand, faith-based groups had actually been getting chunks of that money for decades, and the regulations we put in place really didn't tackle the biggest problem facing secular and religious nonprofits. That problem was the general bureaucratic unfriendliness of the Federal Government to small, local organizations--precisely the kind that compassionate conservatives like Bush (and I) thought could do the best job tackling ingrained poverty and hopelessness on the community level. We were supposed to give these small groups their first shot, but without any money, our office was resigned to making mostly symbolic changes.

None of that had stopped the White House from trumpeting the changes as hugely significant and leading religious conservatives to believe they were highly consequential. Christian conservatives trusted President Bush. After two years in the White House, I had come to realize that regardless of where the President's heart lay on the matter, the back-office Republican political machine was able to take Evangelicals for granted--indeed, often viewed them with undisguised contempt--and still get their votes. G.O.P. operatives trusted that Christian conservatives would see the President more as their Pastor in Chief than anything else. Bush had long used the podium as a pulpit, telling voters that above all he was an evangelical Christian who had been saved from his drinking by Jesus and rebuilt his life around his faith. That inspirational story was carried throughout the country by a network of prominent evangelical pastors who had been quietly working since 1998 to recruit thousands of other pastors to join the Bush team. After the election, however, those same pastors became accomplices in their own deception by not demanding that the President's actions in office match their electoral fervor.

This White House is certainly not the first Administration to milk religious groups for votes and then boot them unceremoniously back out to pasture. In his days as a notorious "hatchet man" for President Richard M. Nixon, before he had allowed Jesus to transform his life, Chuck Colson used to oversee outreach to the religious community. "I arranged special briefings in the Roosevelt Room for religious leaders, ushered wide-eyed denominational leaders into the Oval Office for private sessions with the President," Colson later wrote. "Of all the groups I dealt with, I found religious leaders the most naive about politics. Maybe that is because so many come from sheltered backgrounds, or perhaps it is the result of a mistaken perception of the demands of Christian charity ... Or, most worrisome of all, they may simply like to be around power."

I finished the briefing. Yes, I told the President, because of new regulations there was technically about $8 billion in existing funding that was now more accessible to faith-based groups. But, I assured him, those organizations had been getting money from those programs for years and it wasn't that big a deal.

"Eight billion in new dollars?" he asked.

"No, sir. Eight billion in existing dollars where groups will find it technically easier to apply for grants. But faith-based groups have been getting that money for years."

"Eight billion," he said. "That's what we'll tell them. Eight billion in new funds for faith-based groups. O.K., let's go."

We headed out of the Oval Office, down a flight of stairs and over to the Old Executive Office Building, where the pastors awaited us. The President walked into the room, traded a few jokes and told the group that because of the faith-based initiative, billions of dollars in new funds were now available to faith-based groups like theirs. The pastors listened respectfully. Before the President left, they prayed for him.

Karl stayed behind to share some thoughts and answer questions. "Before I get started, I want to say something. This initiative isn't political," he told them. "If I walked into the Oval Office and said it was going to be political, the President would bash my head in."

Then the questions began. "Since the President brought up money, where, exactly is that money?" asked one pastor. "We've talked to the Cabinet Secretaries, and they say there isn't any new money." They peppered him with questions for several minutes. Finally he smiled at them and said, "Tell you what, I'm going to get those guys in a room and bash some heads together and get to the bottom of this. I'll be back in touch with you." He left confidently.

At the meeting's end, several of the pastors said they wanted to pray for my healing. They placed their hands on my shoulder and called on God to hear their prayers on my behalf. I listened and loved it and said a prayer of my own: that I would have the courage to tell them what was really going on at the White House.

That was more than three years ago. Their prayers have worked on my body. I am still here and very much alive. Now I am finding the courage to speak out about God and politics and their dangerous dance. George W. Bush, the man, is a person of profound faith and deep compassion for those who suffer. But President George W. Bush is a politician and is ultimately no different from any other politician, content to use religion for electoral gain more than for good works. Millions of Evangelicals may share Bush's faith, but they would protect themselves--and their interests--better if they looked at him through the same coldly political lens with which he views them.
____________________________________________________________________________________

2006-11-10T10:40:00.000+11:00

Australia in Top Five Most Livable Countries

What does this tell us? The rich are getting richer, and the poor are still neglected.

A news article from ninemsn.com.au
___________________________________________________________________________________

Norway, Iceland, Australia, Ireland and Sweden rank as the best five countries to live in but Africa's quality of life has plummeted because of AIDS, a UN report shows.

The United States was ranked in eighth place, after Canada and Japan, in the report that rates not only per-capita income but also educational levels, health care and life expectancy in measuring a nation's well-being.

The Human Development Index, prepared by the UN Development Program, has been issued annually since 1990 and includes every country for which statistics are available.

Unsurprisingly, the countries at the top of the list are high income nations as people in richer countries tend to be healthier and have more educational opportunities.

People in Norway, for example, are 40 times wealthier than people in Niger, which ranks 177th, the lowest ranking country on the list.

For the 31 countries with low human development, life expectancy is only 46 years - some 32 years less than in rich nations, the report said.

But some nations have a rank above their income. Vietnam for example is poor but ranks above countries with a higher per capita income.

Conversely Bahrain has an average income twice the level of Chile but ranks lower because it "under-performs on education and literacy," the report said.

However, since 1990, sub-Sahara Africa has stagnated, in part because of economic decline but mainly because of the "catastrophic effect of HIV/AIDS on life expectancy," the report said.

The list of 177 nations ends with Niger. Above it are Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, the Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which ranked 167th.

___________________________________________________________________________________

2006-11-09T01:32:00.000+11:00

I have reached the stage in my research where I should be wrapping up experimental work, tying up loose ends and start to churn results into publications. It's the stage where I say to myself, alright, you've got what you need to get a Ph.D., and it's time to leave the work to somebody else to continue.

It's now time to consolidate the results - make the results understandable to others. That is the hardest part. It's a logical process. But once we've got this figure out, the thesis will follow much more easily.

What we will concentrate on doing now are the following:
- prepare for a department seminar sometime in December this year
- publish in the International Journal of Robotics Research a paper encompassing mainly the results this year from model identification, simulation of control system to verification of experimental results.
- prepare and attend two international conferences, one in Italy next April and the other in China next July

Once the above papers and events have been prepared, I will be concentrating on writing up my thesis. My supervisors recommend allocating 6 months, full-time on writing the thesis from scatch to submision. It may seem like too long but I reckon that's about right. It's technical writing and that requires a lot of planning and thinking. There's always moments when you realise that, perhaps an experiment had not been conducted that is vital to the flow of your reasoning, or an experiment that needs to be re-done, etc. Anything can crop up.

So I am aiming to start on my thesis next February and get it submitted in August 2007. In the mean time, I look forward to less stressful times until the end of the year and a great Christmas vacation, although it doesn't mean that I can neglect my work. Still have a departmental seminar to prepare before Christmas and papers to write up!

2006-11-07T18:53:00.000+11:00

The Melbourne Cup - the race that stops a nation - was held today. Melbourne Cup is Australia's major annual thoroughbred horse race. It is generally regarded as the most prestigious "two-mile" handicap in the world.
The 2006 Melbourne Cup race started at 3:00pm AEDT and was won by Delta Blues (horse number 2), just ahead of Pop Rock (horse number 12), with Maybe Better (horse number 23) coming in third place. Both Delta Blues and Pop Rock were Japanese horses trained by Katsuhiko Sumii. Maybe Better was the Australian horse with the highest placing. This is the first time in the race history that a Japanese horse has won the race.

Now for some trivia about the Melbourne Cup:
- It is for three-year-olds and over (we're talking about race horses, not people)
- The race covers a distance of 3200 metres
- The event is held on the first Tuesday in November by the Victoria Racing Club
- It is held on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, which can hold 135,000
- $20 million was expected to change hands just at the track today
- Almost 80% of Australian adults bet on the race
- 800kg of smoked salmon, 2 tonnes of beef, 50,000 sandwiches and 40,000 party pies were ordered at the track
- Punters would have washed the food down with 165,000 cans of beer, 50,000 bottles of sparkling wine and 1,000 bottles of champagne in the members' area

2006-11-06T15:27:00.000+11:00

I mentioned that I attended a Departmental Seminar by Prof. Andrew Blakers, the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems & ARC Centre of Excellence for Solar Energy Systems here at the ANU last week on their photovoltaics/solar cell invention.

If anyone is interested about this invention and about climate change in general, you may follow the link below. It provides a description of the seminar and also slides from that seminar. Note that there is also a video clip of the entire seminar but it is about 200MB. You may want to download it completely before viewing.

link

Here is also another related link about climate change provided by my brother.

link

By the way, if you are generally interested in the research done by people from CECS (the College of Engineering and Computer Science) of ANU. Follow this link. It may have slides and even videos from past seminars.

link

2006-11-05T21:01:00.000+11:00

Today I took a stroll in the new extension of the Canberra Centre. Canberra Centre's the main shopping complex in Civic, the city centre, or more like the 'town centre' of Canberra. Those of you familiar with Canberra will know that there's nothing happening in this quiet capital. Of course there are large shopping malls in the various town centres in Canberra. Other than Canberra Centre in Civic, there's Westfield Woden in the south and Westfield Belconnen in the North West.

Well, I'm not the shopping type, so I went for a walk and was done in like 10 minutes. A lot of the shops on the ground floor are still under renovation. And it was already late so most of the shops are already closed except the supermarket, Superbarn. Well, I noticed that Superbarn, was like 40% larger than its previous location. Bought milk and fruits while I was there.

I like the resting areas of the new mall. Very classy. And the wooden chairs have like a playground for children.

The new section of the mall is still under construction as you can see from the outside. There'll be plenty of new restaurants and cafes as well, and a new huge cinema.

And on a different note, here's my cute little niece!

2006-11-05T19:18:00.000+11:00

This is so funny! I used my N93 to record this video straight from the TV when it's being shown just today, Channel Nine's '20 to 1 - Unscripted and Unplanned'

Enjoy!

2006-11-02T23:29:00.000+11:00

Today it rained. No. It was a downpour. Strong winds. Plenty of rain. But too little too late. It hasn't rained in Canberra for at least a month, and the last two months have been considered the driest and the hottest September and October for the past ten or twenty years.

Canberra is considered lucky. The worst hit areas are the farm lands in New South Wales. The people involved in the primary industry, especially the farmers and orchard owners, are devastated by draughts which have lasted six years. The government is trying to get the farmers back on their feet by allocating funds and assistance but I guess it's too little, too late. Apparently, the statistics say that one male adult in the primary industry commits suicide every four days.

When there are extreme weather conditions for long period of time, it's a sign that there is something wrong with the environment. The effects of global warming are really taking its toll but no one, not even the government is doing much. It is only these few days or so that we've heard measures being taken and funds being allocated to research into these dire areas.

I went to a seminar the other day given by a solar energy researcher of ANU. Prof. Andrew Blakers is the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems & ARC Centre of Excellence for Solar Energy Systems here at the ANU. His group has invented a new solar cell technology which can reduce the cost of solar cells by 3 quarters and has 20% energy efficiency, which is extremely good when we consider that the energy source is the sun. They are currently commercialising the technology and a factory is currently being built in Adelaide which will manufacture these new solar cells.

It's interesting because when he was asked what the best ways for sustainable energy management in the future are, he said 'with diversity comes stability'. What he means is that we should not depend on a single energy source, unlike the current world situation where fossil fuels are the most important source of energy, but have a variety of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and perhaps nuclear. In terms of researching into these technologies, Australia lags behind and there aren't a lot of encouragement and funding into these areas.

One of the richest man in China, Zhengrong Shi, was a researcher in solar technology from the University of New South Wales. The Chinese government saw that the technology has potential and thus invited him back to China to commercialise the technology. He is now worth an estimated $3 billion, making him the wealthiest person in mainland China, 4th in Australian and 350th richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

Although Australia has lost its world lead in developing a solar energy industry, it is not too late to catch up, he says. "But we have to think long-term and in a more creative way. Australia has the best solar technology. And we have got so much sunshine."

And let's hope that we're not too late.

2006-11-02T12:03:00.000+11:00

New wondercup undies give men a boost... What has the world come to?

link

2006-10-31T19:03:00.000+11:00

While I was in Sydney last weekend, Aya and I went to this Japanese Restaurant in Kensington, close to the University of New South Wales. At first glance, it has this unattractive, dilapidated shop front with a large sign 'Sushi Tengoku', which in Chinese means 'shou4 si1 tian1 guo2'.

Apparently it has a reputation of making very enourmous servings of sushi, at a cheap price. For example, look at the size of the sushis compared to Aya's Motorola mobile phone...

Here's the tamago and scallop sushi... Huge, isn't it?

A piece of a salmon sushi costs 3 bucks, cheaper than a plate of salmon sushi (two pieces) sold elsewhere, but the size of the salmon is larger than two pieces together. It's so much larger than the sushi rice.

The food was quite slow to come, though. It's like a family business and there was only one sushi chef, I think. Lots of take-aways, which is different for sushi restaurants.

All in all, it was a good meal. The highlight came when we were about to leave. An uncle and his two daughters (I think) came in and sat by the table next to ours. He had a metal twist-top bottle of wine, which he did not know. So he was trying to open the wine bottle with a cork screw. But he couldn't figure out why there is no cork to stick the screw in! The metal twist-top basically has two parts. The top part which you twist to open, just like a soft drink PET bottle cover, and the metal part underneath the cover which is fixed to the bottle. So he started peeling the bottom part, which is metallic. He almost had everything except the twist-top cover peeled off and he still can't open the damn bottle!

We were just looking at him, giving each other ridiculous glances and smiles until Aya couldn't stand it and just before we left, Aya politely make a gesture and said to the uncle, "it's a twist-top." But the uncle still doesn't understand. So Aya just grab the bottle of wine, and easily open it!

When we left the restaurant, we burst out laughing. That uncle just made our day!

2006-10-31T18:46:00.000+11:00

The other day we celebrated a friend's birthday. He was our chef when I was still in the restaurant business and he still works there. Although he is at at an age similar to my father's, and he has a family of two children aged 19 and 20, we can always share crazy jokes and make fun of each other while working in the restaurant.

2006-10-25T20:10:00.000+10:00

I have recently been asked to move into an unused laboratory due to a shortage of rooms and an influx of new researchers to our research school. The original room I was in was actually the 'Control Lab'. There were a lot of old manuals and equipments that were already there when I started my research in 2003. I had all my SMA test beds and equipments in the room but I had to move all my things to the new room. The old stuff will be thrown away if nobody claims them.

My new office is pretty good I guess. For one, the size is bigger, and I have it all for myself, for now. My supervisor and I had a joke about the move, saying that it's a self-contained apartment.

I've got my own king-size bed, a TV and a robotic massager. Hmmm...

Here's my workstation, where I can check e-mails and surf the net, right next to the bed.

And I've even got a sun roof, and a hanging line for clothes.

My SMA experimental set-up and computer is also right underneath the sun roof.

Oh yeah, no one's supposed to use my robotic massager without my authorisation :)

The robotic arm is actually a WAM, a 4 Degree-of-Freedom Whole-Arm-Manipulator. The WAM arm is a highly dexterous backdrivable manipulator, built to outperform today's conventional robots by offering extraordinary dexterity, fast dynamics, high bandwidth, zero backlash, and near-zero friction. Currently no one's using the robotic manipulator for research, as there is no longer an official robotics group in our research school. But I think others from the Dept. of Engineering might want to use it for research purposes, so it will have to be moved to the other building. Once that's done, the room may be specially for our SMA research.

2006-10-24T12:54:00.000+10:00

"It's like saying that you won't kiss your lover's lips just because everyone has lips."

Apple's Steve Jobs on rejecting suggestions that IPod will lose its coolness and popularity if people like Dick Cheney and the Queen have one.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Taken from The Australian, dated 24 October 2006.

2006-10-22T22:20:00.000+10:00

This is a darn funny video about an NTU lecturer telling his students about his past students' feedback for his teaching. Enjoy!

2006-10-19T23:24:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I attended a seminar by Professor Mandyam V. Srinivasan, who has just won Australia's top science award, the Prime Minister's Prize for Science, with a prize money of $300,000. The award was given for his research into the insect mind which has helped redefine robotics.

The following is a description of the seminar
___________________________________________________________________________________

Speaker: Professor Mandyam V. Srinivasan
Centre for Excellence in Vision Science, Research School of Biological Sciences, ANU

Title: "More than a Honey Machine"

Abstract:
Anyone who has watched a fly make a flawless landing on the rim of a
teacup, or marvelled at a honeybee speeding home after collecting
nectar from a flower patch several kilometres away, would know that
insects possess visual systems that are fast, reliable and accurate.
Insects cope remarkably well with their world, despite possessing a
brain that carries fewer than 0.01% as many neurons as ours does.
This talk will describe research aimed at understanding the
mechanisms underlying visual perception, navigation, learning, memory
and ìcognitionî in honeybees. Opportunities for incorporating insect-
based principles into the design of novel, autonomous robots will
also be discussed.
___________________________________________________________________________________

The hour-long seminar was extremely interesting and stimulating. It was divided into two sections, the first about his group's research into how bees navigate and communicate, and the second about how they used the results in computer vision and robotics.

I find the first part in particular very interesting. Prof. Srinivasan's group was intrigued by how insects, and in particular bees, determine the distance of a landmark because unlike humans and other animals, they do not have stereoscopic eyes. With very small brains, how these insects make their way home or towards a food source and navigate around obstacles is truly amazing.

The first thing they discovered was that bees use the speed at which a landmark moves as they fly to determine how far the landmark is from them. We can also judge how far an object is from us if we are moving. Imagine that we are driving. We know that a tree that quickly becomes larger in our view is close to us, whereas the hill which doesn't appear to move at all is far from us. That's also how bees determine the distance. What this also means is that they can't determine the distance if they are not moving.

Another experiment that they did was to determine how bees can fly exactly in the middle of a tunnel. The way they do this is basically by balancing the image flow rate from both sets of eye (remember bees, flies, insects have groups of tiny eyes on each side). To test this hypothesis, they purposely move one side of the tunnel wall at a certain speed while keeping the other side of the tunnel fixed. If they move one wall, say wall A, at a certain speed in the direction opposite to the motion of the bee, they would find the bee flying closer to the other wall, wall B. Vice versa, if they move wall A in the same direction of the bee motion, they find that the bee will fly closer to wall A. The reason is that in the first situation, the opposite motion of wall A causes the bee to think that wall A is closer to it, due to the higher image flow rate. Therefore it steers away from wall A and fly closer to wall B. Whereas in the second situation, wall A moves in the same direction as the bee, so the bee thinks that wall A is farther away, therefore it moves closer to wall A as it flies through the tunnel.

They also find that bees like to maintain a certain speed while flying based on the image flow rate. In the same tunnel where they did the above experiments, the researchers first determine the speed of the bee using cameras. They then move both sides of the wall at a certain speed in the opposite direction of the bee motion. And guess what? The bee slows down. When they move the walls in the same direction as the bee, the bee speeds up. They discovered that the relative speed betwen the bee and the motion of the wall is approximately the same.

The bees' sense of direction is extremely good. You've probably heard of the saying 'to make a bee line', which is quite true. Once the bees find a food source, they can head straight to their hive. They also find that these bees communicate with the others using a 'wiggle dance', where they do a certain 'dance' motion. The duration of the dance determines how far the food source is from the hive. This relationship is fairly linear. And they can also communicate the direction of the food source in this dance.

The main reason why I enjoyed this seminar was that the experiments and ideas that they come up with were very simple, yet very effective. But of course, Prof. Srinivasan has been working in this area for about twenty years. But this sort of applied research is what I prefer, making a new invention or an application based on what you have discovered in your research.

2006-10-15T20:00:00.000+10:00

This is so cool!

This is a story about a previously unknown Australian band, Sick Puppies, trying to kickstart their music career in the US. One of the guys from the band stumbled on one man, Juan Mann, who started a one-man campaign in the streets of Sydney on giving 'Free Hugs' to total strangers. So he took videos of Juan's campaign, edited the videos and added their own song in the background. And now it's getting millions of hits around the world on YouTube. And within a week, they've become well-known. Apparently, they even got a call from Oprah.

Here's the description on the video:

___________________________________________________________________________________
Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.

In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.

In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER! After all, If you can reach just one person...

Music by Sick Puppies. (Visit http://sickpuppies.net or http://myspace.com/sickpuppies for the music)
------------------------------ -------------------

PS. The response to this video has been nothing short of overwhelming and touching. Hugs to every single one of you who messaged. There has been thousands of emails from all over the world by people seeking to participate in the Free Hugs campaign and asking for permission. You do not need permission. This is the peoples movement, this is *your* movement. With nothing but your bare hands you can make THE difference.

Imagine all the people.
___________________________________________________________________________________

2006-10-14T14:21:00.001+10:00

Lately I've been spending a lot of time on YouTube looking at Korean professional gamers (Progamers) battling Starcraft in their professional league. This is perhaps the largest, most extensive and lucrative gaming competition in the world! Top players could be earning hundreds of thousands of US dollars, and that doesn't cover competition prize monies, advertisements and endorsements!

My favourite player was a guy named Lim Yo-Hwan, nickname SlayerS_'BoxeR'. He's one of the top progamers in Korea, I reckon the all-time best SC player in the world. And he plays Terran. I tell you he's really good. Check out the videos:

Good hey?

2006-10-14T14:21:00.000+10:00

Lately I've been spending a lot of time on YouTube looking at Korean professional gamers (Progamers) battling Starcraft in their professional league. This is perhaps the largest, most extensive and lucrative gaming competition in the world! Top players could be earning hundreds of thousands of US dollars, and that's doesn't cover competition prize monies, advertisements and endorsements!

My favourite player was a guy named Lim Yo-Hwan, nickname SlayerS_'BoxeR'. He's one of the top progamers in Korea, I reckon the all-time best SC player in the world. And he plays Terran. I tell you he's really good. Check out the videos:

Good hey?

2006-10-10T22:59:00.000+10:00

Last Saturday, Aya and I went to some friends' wedding. It was held at the Cockington Green Gardens, a tourist destination in Canberra. It has a lot of those miniature buildings, views and scenarios placed in a wonderful garden.

So anyway, Yueshi, the groom, was a PhD student in my research school who graduated last year. I'll put up some of their photos and a video clip if I have their permission to do so. [Okay, I've got their permission now. Here they are!]

At the wedding, I also met up with Tod. Here's a photo of my friend Tod and myself. Tod's my friend from my undergraduate years. He's currently a robotics engineer in Canberra. A good friend.

And here are some photos of Aya and I together. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to take photos of the gardens. The ceremony was held in a private section of the place. By the time we realised that we could actually go to the other side. It was already dark so the photos didn't look good and I deleted them.

And a funny thing that we observed was the following signs written in Chinese.

2006-10-10T13:33:00.000+10:00

Check out this cool video!

2006-10-04T20:08:00.000+10:00

I've just recently came back from Sydney over the long weekend. And here's a video of the busy Sydney George Street, in front of the Sydney Town Hall and the famous Queen Victoria Building. The video was taken by myself

We also went to the Animania Festival held in the Sydney Town Hall. I must say, the interior of the building was very impressive. Here's a few photos of the building:

But sad to say about the Animania Festival, there wasn't much to see. There were events like cosplay (anime costume playing), anime theme song karaoke competition, stalls selling anime DVDs, toys and posters, anime custom-edited video competition, anime drawing competition, Japanese food stalls, etc. but I guess we're too old for these stuffs.

Next we went to a cafe that was known to do pork rib racks at a cheap price. The food was just alright. We all prefer the ones at My Angus on Darling Harbour or Hurricane, at Bondi Beach.

Now I'm back in Canberra.

2006-09-29T13:40:00.000+10:00

Nokia has just recently announces its latest N-series mobile phone, the Nokia N95.

Here are some photos:

Some of its impressive features include:

- 5MP Photo Lens
- 2-way slide for fast transformation from multimedia computer to player
- WLAN or HSDPA (3.5g) withup to 10 times faster download than with 3g
- 2.6 TFT Display
- Carl Zeiss optics with advanced Auto Focus
- VGA Resolution up to 30 frames per second
- WCDMA HSPDA 2100 and EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- Supports Micro SD up to 2 gigs
- Internal memory up to 160mb (memory card is not included in sales package)
- RAM 64 mb
- SIP support - client for VoIP in some timeframe
- Standard Battery Time 215 hours stand-by
- Bluetooth (including support for A2DP profile)
- Infared
- Weight: 120 gms
- Size: 99mm x 20mm x 53mm
- Dedicated Media Keys
- Nokia Web Browser version 2.0
- Video Output
- Built-in GPS and world map covering 100 countries via the Nokia Maps
Application. Additional navigation and city guides will be available for purchase

Priced at €550 the N95 will be available Q1 2007 in 2 colors, plum and sand, with future developments for other colors.

God! What a cool phone! The crucial features that make me drool over this phone are its light weight of 120 g, the 5MP camera and its innovative double sliding mechanism. The GPS ia also a cool new feature, particularly useful since I may be overseas in Europe for conference and travelling next year.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Nokia N93. It's an impressive thing but I guess the pace of technological advancement always wins. one can never beat the lust for cooler stuffs :)

2006-09-26T20:48:00.000+10:00

Today I went 'landrolling', or skating, with my Landroller skates along the foot-paths of Lake Burley Griffin. Don't get me wrong, I've been skating to and from my research school a number of times already. But I figure it'd make my skates 'happy' if I bring them for a real ride.

The weather today was fine. Sunny, dry and just slightly cold. It's considered warm for a September day. Apparently, everyone's saying that this summer will be extremely hot and dry. I would have to agree with that, because this winter has also been very dry. There hadn't been much raining lately, and even if it rained, it rained in the wrong place. And there's already been a few bushfires in New South Wales. Nasty ones, I'd say, a few houses burnt down.

So anyway, while I was doing a bit of skating, I also took some photos around the lake. Here they are ...

And here's the same scenery using different camera modes ...

2006-09-25T11:04:00.000+10:00

This is damn funny! I couldn't resist laughing when I saw this at work. Makes one wonder where they get the English translation from a Chinese menu. From a digital translator word by word?

Oh shit! I laughed so hard that I had to wipe away my tears.

Link

2006-09-22T23:40:00.000+10:00

Last night I had dinner with Ee Peng and JJ, two friends of mine who came from Melbourne for work-related purposes. Ee Peng was also from Penang and we were in the same college in Perth in 1999. Somehow we didn't keep in touch until now. Here's a photo of Ee Peng and I taken last night.

JJ was my ex-housemate's brother. When he came to Canberra for a few months at the end of 2003, we just somehow got very close. I think that was the best days I had since coming to Canberra, because the house was like an 'attraction point' for our friends. It was the time when a lot of our friends are graduating, so some of them moved in to stay with us for a while before leaving for Sydney or Melbourne. At one point there were about 8/9 of us staying at the town house. We played Starcraft (computer game), Settles of Catan (board game), cooked and just hang out together. It was just great.

JJ's a funny guy. But Ee Peng says he keeps irritating her at work :) and he wouldn't allow me to put his photos on my blog, so I'll just cover his face. Say 'Hi' to JJ :)

Anyway, back to our dinner. We went to Belluci's in Manuka. JJ and I each had a fillet mignon on mashed potato with mushroon sauce. Ee Peng had pan-seared ocean trout on garden greens.

Here's the fillet mignon..

and the ocean trout..

Well, it was a good dinner and we had a great chat. Aya and I will be going to Melbourne for the New Year celebrations. We'll fly there on the 29th Dec and leaving on the 1st Jan 2007, so we'll have plenty of time to catch up with friends.

2006-09-20T23:24:00.000+10:00

I have recently updated my PhD website. I guess it is about time to do that as well. So the first thing I did was to change my photo. It used to be this:

Ugly, isn't it? It's now been changed to the following photo which I took myself:

And the equipment beside me, that's my precious experimental test bed. Took me in total about 8 months last year to complete it from scratch. The whole thing was custom designed, commissioned, built, debugged, tested and finished in the research school. The whole project was undertaken by myself, with advice from my supervisor and as well as help from the Engineering Department workshop manager for some of the parts. So i'm quite proud of the achievement.

An explanation of the various components of the test bed will certainly bore you guys so I won't go into that. The important point is that we now have the ability to conduct experiments that were never before possible or had been done by others in the research of Shape Memory Alloy actuators. Most of the papers in the literature are usually about position control and not many have delved into SMA force control systems. With our test bed, we can investigate constrained force control and even combined position and force control.

So far, our results are very convincing. We have achieved very accurate force control and fast response as well. A paper for ICRA next year has been submitted based on our simulation and experimental force control results so I am looking forward to this conference and trip to Rome, Italy.

Our final research milestone is to implement combined position and force control using an antagonistic pair of SMA actuators. The two SMA actuators are attached to a rotating pulley and the rotation of the pulley can be measured using an optical encoder/sensor. The idea is to have a position outer loop, to track position commands (rotation of the pulley), and a faster force inner loop. The reason is because we already have a very accurate SMA force control, so we can treat the actuators as ideal force actuators. This means that whatever force command we ask for, the control system is capable of getting the actuator to produce the required force.

Although a single position feedback loop is always easy to implement, and can track the position commands, which was demonstrated countless times in the literature, the introduction of an external load or disturbance to the plant will cause oscillations and result in tracking inaccuracy. The reason is that the load introduces extra dynamics which are difficult to compensate with a simple position control. With the combined position and force control, we hope to solve the oscillation problem. In fact, when I recently implemented such a control scheme, it worked. Oscillations were not observed. What we plan to do in the next few months is to tune up our control systems to produce faster and more accurate response and to obtain a model of the SMA as a design and simulation aid.

Hmm... I wasn't planning to explain what I did and why or how it was done that way but I guess I ended up getting worked out over it. Perhaps for the engineers reading this, I hope you may find my work interesting. This certainly is the exciting period in my PhD. After this, I will start writing up my thesis next year At the same time, I will start planning my career and searching for jobs.

I wonder if they'd offer scholarships if I were to do another PhD :)

2006-09-18T20:28:00.000+10:00

I attended a forum to discuss about possible oral defense assessments for PhD student at ANU organised by PARSA (The Postgraduate And Research Students' Association). About 50 PhD students across many colleges and departments attended the forum, including 3 university representatives sitting on the University Education Committee, the body that makes decisions on student education and regulations.

The idea of PhD oral defense stems from surveys made by the university on various colleges about possible ways to improve the PhD experience as well as the competitive edge of ANU postgraduates. So it was one of the ideas that had come up. However, there were polarizing opinions across the committee as to what model the oral defense should follow.

The first has serves a more ceremonial function, attended by the candidate's supervisory panel members. Under this model, the results is normally clear before the oral examinations.

Another model is a form of 'approval/endorsement to submit' the written thesis. The assessment panel consists of the supervisor panel members and perhaps other members either internal or external to the university. The panel would make a written report with a list of recommendations or outlines where additional work is required on the thesis. So it's an extra step before the submission of the thesis.

The final model is where external examiners have assessed the written thesis and have provided a written report on recommendations, questions about parts of the thesis that require further explanations that will be addressed at the oral defense. They will then attend the oral defense and make a recommendation to the university in regards to the outcome.

The idea of an oral defense has had some negative responses from some of the students at the forum. Some of the arguments are that it will create additional workload/pressure/effort for students, extra finance/time is required especially for overseas assessors to attend. There is a general opinion that an oral defense is associated with border line pass/fail results and this would reflect negatively on the PhD candidate. The idea of video conferencing was floated but people say they are generally negative about that idea because you could not see their body languages and it's difficult talking to a camera. There are also problems with time zone differences.

There are also those who are in favour of the idea. I for one am supportive of an oral defense. I think it is actually good for personal and professional development because you have the opportunity to have in-depth discussions with a few leading experts in your field. A PhD candidate should not only demonstrate organised and in-depth knowledge in written form, he/she should be able to present his arguments orally. It's a different experience to conference/departmental seminar presentations. But I believe that an aggresive environment for an oral defense is a bad idea. There should be some sort of university representatives or one/two of your supervisory panel members who can witness/arbituate the defense. But there are also some, especially overseas students, who may have problem in orally communicating his/her research, so they may have a disadvantage. So perhaps some sort of regulations can be identified for them.

The important outcome from the forum is that this issue requires further discussions and dialogs between the university and the students. Well, at least we, the students, have a say in such a crucial decision making that affects our PhD experiences.

2006-09-17T19:56:00.000+10:00

Today we made a two-hour drive to the Sunnataram Forest Monastery. It's a Buddhist monastery/temple taken care of by Thai Buddhist monks.

One of the aunties I went with is a devout Buddhist and she wanted somebody to drive her and two other aunties to the monastery. It's located near the small town of Bundanoon, about halfway between Canberra and Sydney. I was told that the land the monastery was built on is about 100 hectares but there were only a few small buildings that I saw. Upon entry, we could see that a new temple housing golden Buddha statues was being built.

They were also building a pond right next to the new temple. It certainly didn't look impressive at first sight. We parked the car and made a walk towards the main monastery. People, volunteers and worshippers, were just helping out with cooking and lunch preparation. I was told that anyone could come to the monastery and have meals at the monastery at no cost. The monks were a friendly bunch.

When lunch was prepared, everyone gathered in the meditation room. The abbot chanted some prayers for a short moment before we started eating. The food were offered to the monks first of course. As a 'meat-eater', I was surprised that the vegetarian food was quite good, although I must say I was pretty hungry by the time we had lunch :)

The monastery was situated on a hill. we could almost make out the ocean from where we stood. There were birds chirping, unafraid of all the people around the compound. The air was crisp, although it wasn't too cold as it is almost spring time.

There were even a few peacocks which displayed their elegant feathers in full view. They were just amazing!

Here are some photos I took using my new Nokia N93 in 'negative' mode. The new phone is pretty cool. I could lots of things with its features - WiFi, 3.2 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom, video camcording, TV output, swirvel and twist configurations, MP3s etc.

Well, it was a good journey on a lazy Sunday!

2006-09-15T01:15:00.000+10:00

I'm a coffee person. Usually I must have at least one cuppa coffee a day. It doesn't matter what time I have my coffee. Even a cup of coffee late at night, I can still be sound asleep in 15 minutes. I've even got my own coffee machine at home. And here's a nice video clip for an amazing feat of coffee making.

2006-09-10T20:38:00.000+10:00

It's a good thing that I sold my share of the restaurant business. Although I truly enjoy cooking and preparing cuisines that are delicious, at the time when I was comtemplating about my stressful lifestyle and future, I was pretty messed up. I was always too stressed. In the day I was exhausting my brain doing research and thinking about complicated experiments and mathematical models. By about 4pm I had to leave my work and go to the restaurant for physical work. I did not have enough time for other things such as leisure and sports. I even had headaches and neck pains that required chiropractic sessions. Basically I was messed up.

It didn't take long for me to realise that this isn't the right thing anymore. Basically I've learnt everything about running a restaurant business including most of the culinary preparation skills. And my time would be running out for the completion of my PhD.

And it didn't take long for the results to turn positive. I've moved out to my own studio apartment close to uni. Here's a view from my room.

My research has progressed so significantly that we could probably wrap up the experiments by the end of the year. All robotics researchers know that achieving really accurate force control for a large robotic manipulator is damn difficult because of problems like torque ripple, dynamics and inertia due to the heavy mechanism, motor and gearing effects. With Shape Memory Alloys, we've achieved that. This material has always been considered slow and inaccurate. With the experimental set-up we have in the lab, we are doing many new experiments that were never thought of before and the results are simply breath-taking. Who would thought that Shape Memory alloys could even produce mechanical response in the audio range? Just listen to this.

I've submitted a paper for ICRA'07 (The International Conference for Robotics and Automation) which will be held in Italy next year. So I'm looking forward to attending this conference and doing some travelling in Europe.

I also plan to enrol in a vocational culinary course next year. I've always enjoyed cooking, so maybe it's just to fulfil one of my desires to have a formal 'qualification' and acknowledgement of my restaurant experiences. It would be interesting to have both a PhD in Robotics as well as a culinary diploma :)

Winter is almost over. I'm actually looking forward to spring actually. It's the time of Floriade in Canberra. A time when flowers bloom and the skies are blue. A good time to try out my new Landroller skates on the bicycle and jogging paths around the Lake Burley Griffin.

Okay, that's all from me for now. The next time I blog, I will probably be talking about our experiences doing hang-gliding, or maybe about the culinary experience we had in a Sydney Japanese-French fusion cuisine restaurant, whose chef and owner has been awarded the Three Chef's Hats honour, as well as being voted the best restaurant in Australia and the 5th around the world, Tetsuya's.

Cheers
Yee Harn

2006-09-10T01:35:00.000+10:00

The other day I met up with Ee Peng, a friend of mine from Year 12 in Perth, who was in Canberra for work. She was from Penang as well. We lamented that we had not been keeping in touch since 2000. It was in 1999 that we met, and we can't belieave that it is now the year 2006. We have known each other for 7 year already! As for high school friends, we'd be going back for at least 10 years! So it's great that we did manage to meet up. And I've made a personal promise to go to Melbourne before the end of the year. I also have a number of good friends in Melbourne - Tat Jun, Su-En and JJ. The saying 'Out of sight, out of mind'. That's an accurate description of my situation here.

2006-09-07T23:09:00.000+10:00

Returning to blogging? I think I can now afford to spend some time on my personal site now that I've sold my shares in the restaurant business. My sole mission now is to finish my PhD and submit by August next year. Perhaps this is the starting point for me to keep my old friends in the loop.

Cheers
Yee Harn

2005-07-25T13:24:00.000+10:00

Cool game!

The aim is to not let the monkey catch your cursor. Something to play with when you're in the office, bored or having a break. Enjoy!

2005-06-24T01:12:00.000+10:00

Dear all, Tat Jun is here in Canberra! He says 'hi' to everybody.
Be going back to Melbourne on Saturday. I've been bringing him around Canberra but all it actually takes is one day to visit the interesting places. Canberra's too cold for him compared to Melbourne. A bit of advice.. have laksas at my restaurant and you'll be okay.

Tat Jun recommends our Ipoh hor fun and Fried ice-cream. :)

Today we went to the National Museum of Australia, which I had been to every time there's a visitor to Canberra... My brothers 4 years ago, Siew Kiang in September 2003.. my parents in July 2004... and now Tat Jun... June 2005.... it's the same... even the introduction movie is the same.. That's all folks... wonder where I will bring him to tomorrow..

2005-05-30T16:09:00.000+10:00

Just got the 'go-ahead' signal I need to commence purchasing for my new test bed. Finally I can start getting my hands dirty on building it.

The head of the department just sent an e-mail to everyone about voluntary Mid-Term Reviews. With the new ANU rules, a PhD student doesn't need to do such a review. We've only got something called a Bi-Annual Study Plan which is only a few pages and doesn't really provide much details as well as something called a 'Thesis Proposal Review' submitted at the end of the first year, which only poorly mimics the real thing. So a couple of students actually volunteer to do a Mid-Term Review, which usually includes submitting a report about 80 pages outlining the introduction, papers written as chapters and future chapters, making a one-hour seminar and taking comments and questions from reviewers as well as a short interview with possible your supervisory panel.

I am actually considering that.

Just got word that my parents are in Shandong for a short one-week holiday. My eldest brother has left his previous firm and is currently starting his own architecture firm. I so glad for him.
My second elder brother is somewhere in France, I think, doing a couple of weeks in Europe travelling before starting work in NUS in August.

I am currently waiting for my Nokia 7710 to be checked and software upgraded. Geez... been waiting for eternity to use it. Well, at least i've got the box of shit, except the handset.

I've been living like a hermit lately without doing anything interesting. Hmm... might go for a swim later or maybe watch a movie tonight.

2005-05-20T13:54:00.000+10:00

Just some updates!

I am officially in the 20th day of my second year into my PhD program. If I were in the old system, I would have to complete a Mid-term Review when I have finished one and a half year of my PhD. However, with the new system, I would need to complete a Thesis Proposal Review at the end of my first year, which I did. The new review is less work but it gives the school an earlier indication of whether a PhD candidate is able to produce a thesis of sufficient quality. With the new program, a PhD student needs to submit a thesis at the end of 3 full years, with the possibility of extending up to one year. This gives the student a possible 4-year period to complete his/her thesis but the scholarships usually can only be extended up to half a year. This means that students, like myself, are under more unconscious pressure to wrap up our PhDs in a certain period of time.

As for me, I am currently completing my new test bed design. There will be a lot of components to purchase and machining to do. Hopefully the entire test bed could be up and running at the end of August. That would leave me with about one year to conduct experiments and test my control systems, and then to start writing up my main thesis.

On a different note, I look forward to my Sydney trip this weekend. It would be our 4th Anniversary together and I'd really like to have a great time there. Can't believe there've been so much we've been through. I think since Aya's moved up to Sydney, our bond has been stronger although we're both more independent. Used to be that we see each other practically everyday, but the distance has actually made us more appreciative of our times together. I'd imagine this situation to continue for a little while because I have my PhD and work in Canberra and she has a better job prospect in Sydney. At the end of that, I hope I can wrap things up in Canberra, apply for an industrial or university research position in Sydney and just have a less tiring lifestyle than I currently have now.

The other day while I was walking into the Woden shopping mall, I saw an old friend from far. I backed up and walked along a different path to avoid directly meeting him. Somehow, somewhere in time, we've sort of lost touch. He used to be a good friend of ours but an incident led into a point of no return where we never contacted each other since then. I cannot say I know what really happened but it's ironic that these things do happen to close friends. It's just sad.

My new nokia 7710 still hasn't arrived after 3 weeks. Apparently they have the phone package in stock but not the MMC card that comes with the purchase. So they're waiting for a new batch of Nokia 7710s to come in before they can send one over to me, which is really frustrating because i've been looking forward to getting it for so long now. Let's hope they might give me something as a show of apology for my long wait.

2005-05-19T10:33:00.000+10:00

This is an interesting read. Happiness explained mathematically.

link

2005-05-13T15:28:00.000+10:00

Men who catch flies with chopsticks can do anything.

Link

2005-04-18T17:22:00.000+10:00

I think I am a workaholic. Or at least about 50% of the time. I mean, sometimes I feel that I always take up too much work and responsibility than I can handle. I like challenges and getting things done, which is a good thing, but it can easily backfire.

For example, in my undegraduate days, I used to take up three, four night shifts at the restaurant, work as a casual tutor while studying full-time. I could handle that. That's talking with my 1st class honours testimonial being waved in the air.

And then there was another time when I was thinking of doing my PhD, the restaurant business and another start-up with one great idea but without any substantial knowledge and IP in hand. I almost did it but luckily things didn't get ugly. We ended the latter engagement and moved on from that.

So the situation is this, everything's about 50-50. Things are going okay, but not as smooth as I'd like them to be. That's because of the other 50% of the time (which I mentioned at the start), I feel like slacking off.

Is it just me? Or does everyone feel that everybody else is doing more than what we are doing?

2005-04-07T01:28:00.000+10:00

For people who noticed the date difference between this entry and the previous one, you may be thinking that I was having a long long break from November to April. In actual fact, I've taken 3 months off my PhD program from Jan to March and now I'm back for more.

During this period, I've worked, moved house, holiday-ed, and had a baby niece. The place I've moved to is a whole lot better than the previous place. It's human nature to aim for something better, I guess. Also bought a new desktop, LDC monitor and all. Of the 5 computers at home, I own 3 of them. The old desktop, the new one and a laptop, which has three rechargeable batteries, thanks to my brother who gave it to me.

Another thing is that my room is larger, although I'm still paying the same amount of rent. The reason is that my friend absorbs the increase in rent because he wants the largest bedroom.

Will update more the next time, whenever it is.

2004-11-16T15:55:00.000+11:00

Updates on my research

I'll be leaving for Singapore for SMART'04 Conference next Tuesday. For any of you who may be interested in the paper which I'll be presenting can have a look here. It may also be very interesting to listen to the audio clip on the website.

2004-11-03T15:33:00.000+11:00

=====================================================
Information Engineering & Robotic Systems Lab Seminar Australian National University
=====================================================
Title:
A new control system for fast motion control of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuator wires

Speaker:
Yee Harn Teh, Ph.D. student @ InfoEng. RSISE, ANU

When:
Thursday 11th November 11:30-12:00

Where:
RSISE seminar room, ground floor, building 115 cnr. North and Daley Roads, ANU

Abstract:
SMA actuators are generally considered to be slow and inaccuratedue to their inherent thermal hysteresis in the phase transformation.To improve the speed and accuracy, we propose using the resistancemeasurement feedback incorporated as a current limiter mechanismin a motion control system. Two different motion controllers havebeen considered. The first is based on Grant's two-stage relaycontroller and the second a modified proportionalcontroller. Results showed that the speed of response had beenincreased compared to when the current limiter mechanism was notin place. Experimental results also show that the current limitercan be used to increase the speed of SMA actuators with differentmotion controllers. Results also show that the limit cycle is amanifestation of the motion controllers used and if a sufficientlygood motion controller is used, such as the modified proportionalcontroller, the limit cycle can be further reduced.

Biography:
Yee Harn is a first-year Ph.D. student at the Department of Information Engineering at RSISE under the supervision of Dr. Roy Featherstone. This seminar is a 'test-run' oral presentation for the SMART'04 Conference (The First International Conference on Shape Memory And Related Technologies) he will be attending on 24th-26th November.

=====================================================

2004-10-12T15:27:00.000+10:00

Interesting Products

I chanced upon some interesting products developed by a company called Etrema in the States. These products use technologies which are sort of similar to my research, although they are using a different type of 'smart' materials.

I guess I should describe what a 'smart' material is before elaborating much. The term smart materials refers to a class of materials that are highly responsive and have the inherent capability to sense and react according to changes in the environment. The common characteristic of all smart materials is the ability to react mechanically to external stimuli. These materials have been developed to work smarter and more efficiently than their predecessors.
Today's smart materials largely respond in one of two ways - either electrostrictively or magnetostrictively. These terms basically identify how they are told to move, either electrically or magnetically, respectively. Other smart materials, such as Shape Memory alloys, react to changes in temperature.

As you know, I'm working on Shape Memory Alloys. These products uses Terfenol-D, which uses the concept of magnetostriction instead of Shape Memory Effect. The technology is pretty new, developed by the US Naval Ordnance Laboratory in the 1970s. The company is a spin-off that organisation and the Ames Laboratory that aims to develop Terfenol-D for commercial applications.

Here are some descriptions of these cool products:

Whispering Window The amazing new Whispering Window, recently featured on CNN, turns any glass surface into a speaker. With it, bulky speakers become a thing of the past!
Omnivox Attach it to your laptop or other presentation device, sit it on the conference room table, and enter the next dimension in sound.
Soundbug A fun gadget that turns any flat surface into a speaker! The Soundbug is a unique device that looks similar to a computer mouse, but locks to any flat surface with a suction-cup device capable of generating sound levels up to 75dB.
Clean Room Speakers ETREMA's innovative CL-2 Clean Room Speaker is a sealed audio speaker specially designed for clean rooms, harsh environments, or where vandalism might be a problem.

All of these products use the Terfenol-D technology. Apparently 'Whispering Window' costs about US$1500 per piece, the 'Omnivox' costs around US$300 where as the 'Soundbugs' are US$25 per piece. These products will dispense with the need to have speakers because they will be using things that we already have as sound amplifiers.

Hmm.... planning to get my hands on one or two of these cool stuff.

2004-10-01T16:00:00.000+10:00

Trapped in RSISE Part II

4.00pm and we're still trapped in the building. They've taken a sample of the white powdery stuff for identification and there is still no news of when we can get out.

Here's the link to some of the photos taken by one of the PhD Students, Felix, right when this is happening.

2004-10-01T14:14:00.000+10:00

Trapped in the RSISE Building! Here I am, about 1pm on a Friday afternoon, doing my work in my office when the PA system asked for all fire wardens in the building to meet. 5 minutes later, one of them popped in my office, saying that we've been held in the building because they've found some form of white powder in one of the toilets, which could possibly be Anthrax.

How serious this was? Well, 3 police cars and 5 or 6 fire engines, some bearing 'Fire brigades', 'Hazardous materials', 'Fire and rescue' basically sums up the situation. How long it would take? I do not know. As of now, they're slowly taking their time to re-direct traffic and probably trying to get equipments or gadgets out of their car to initiate the investigation.

Darn... I might be late for work tonight.

2004-09-28T01:22:00.000+10:00

Today's a good day to blog. Alone in the office, trying to get some reading done. A side issue is to not have to compete for parking spaces the next morning. It's usually around 10 am that I get up and by the time I get to school, all permit parking spaces have already been taken up. Now my utilisation of the permit is almost 90% and I'm already getting much more than what I've paid for it.

Just thought I'd write about anything that's on my mind. My heater-cum-fan broke down about a month ago. I remember my friends from Canning College in Perth bought it for me for my birthday. They were my housemates. It was pretty crazy at that time. Eight guys in one unit. People used to call me 'Fish' by then. I'm not gonna elaborate on that 'cause it's too long ago. And i'm kinda embarassed. Ah, that was the good old days. Heaters can be replaced, but friendship is not easily replaced or maintained. I wonder where they are now? One's probably an international chess player at the Grandmaster level. One's doing some IT consulting in Brunei. The rest, I do not know.

Trying to get my Thesis Proposal Review planned and written. Hmmm.... should I write about the literature review here? It will probably bored everyone to death, I'd imagine. How about tossing ideas about my thesis topic? People probably wouldn't be able to understand. Or I should just blog about my current situation.

I think I want to get a laptop pretty soon. Hopefully I can get one before my conferences at the end of November and early December. Depends on the budget that I've got. That reminds me of another thing that I need to do... Get my conference presentations prepared. Wouldn't be good if I screw up in front of international researchers and audiences. I would wanna be impressing them and getting them to come over and talk to me about our work, which I've got just the right thing to impress them with.

My application for 3 months' suspension for the first three months next year has been put through. It should be approved. During my last discussion with my supervisor, he told me that he's quite happy with my progress. I'm also surprised myself about the amount of progress i've made in erm.... eight months (that's until 30 September). Who'd imagine i'd have three papers submitted so soon? Apparently, the head of department is quite impressed with our work. Despite all that, we've still got something cooking up. Just have to get the stuff ready.

My younger brother's pretty stressed out with his Year 12. I guess the pressure and burden of three overachieving older brothers are really weighing him down. But it looks to me that he's dealing with it quite well. He has the calibre and quality to follow in on our achievements. I think he's already done a good job already. We will all be there to support him. I hope he knows that.

Went into a book shopping spree the other day. Bought a fantasy novel but realised that I missed the previous book in the series. So I bought that today. Don't really have the time to read anything else besides the thesis literature, but I hope to squeeze some time for that. Long stories are always my favourite, but it's already frustrating to have to reread previous books just to follow the storyline.

Long weekend ahead, and I look forward to it.

2004-09-23T14:08:00.000+10:00

Try this!

2004-09-08T14:52:00.000+10:00

I've got nothing to say.

Not that I've really got nothing to say, but I'm just wordless with the things on my mind. So if i say everything that's on my mind, the whole world around me would be upside-down. But I'll survive, and I hope others will survive too.

Anyway, finished two papers in one freaking month's time while working my ass off. The more stress i'm in, the better I can handle the situation. I think that's just me. Most people just can't handle intense stress very well. Believe me, I've been through worse situations than this, mentally, physically and financially.

Anyway, my flight back's been booked. Woo hoo! Fully paid by the research school except for my flights between Singapore and Penang, which won't amount to much. Thing's been going smoothly but I suspect there's an underlying current underneath all these that may disrupt this uneasy peace. I won't give a ** to whatever that's blocking my path.

Oh well... better get back to my readings.