Phew...

What a week so far...

Things have been really hectic (you can make out from the number of ... actually the absense of...posts).

So today has been a good day so far.

But I still have a headache. Mostly caused by the late night discussion with a few friends of mine.

This friend is about to sign a huge design contract for a housing project in KL. This deal is huge and it's a big step forward for him. I am really happy for him and so we were having a really long chat last night.

He, and another friend, came over to collect medicines from my wife (she's a Homeopathic doctor, in case you didn't already know that) and she's helping him stop his hair loss. So after he came over, we sat chatting for a while at home and then decided to take it outside where we could talk some more.

This went on until about 2am in the morning.

I need some sleep.

Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question

Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I go out with you", and take into account the fact that I went out with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct . . .leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A

PS: Thanx to Thomas for sharing this.

Eeeeeeeaaaawwwwwwww....DHHAAUUMMM...

That's how it sounds when an F1 car goes down the start finish straight (at least that's the best way I can describe it)

Yesss...... I finally managed to get the tickets and am at Sepang for the Malaysian Grand Prix 2006.

As a follow on from the last post, I took the flight out of Singapore into KL. An extremely uneventful flight, mainly because it is a short 50min flight and the fact that it was Sri Lankan Air (which I have sworn never to fly again). The flight was delayed by almost 3 hours and I was generally loitering around at Changi (which is a great place to loiter...just wish I was at Terminal 2 rather than Terminal 1).

After landing at KL, I took a cab (RM40) to Sepang and approached the ticketing counter with some trepedition. I had the booking information (my pal had sent all of the information on e-mail last night), but it was still on his name and one of the criteria for collection was the passport as proof of identity. Luckily for me, the nice lady did not even bother to check whether the name on the ticket is the same as the name on the passport.

Ten minutes later, I was walking towards the gate with a big grin on my face.

At the gate, there were people checking if anyone was carrying food and mineral water into the grand stand. I dont think they were bothered with knives, but Mineral water was a strict no no. How else could they sell you the same thing at double the price? I had come straight from the airport and so I had the bottle of Glen Livet (15yrs!) in my bag. The friendly people of Sepang invited me to a drink on me after the GP was over :-)

Aah, the atmosphere of the GP. People dressed in their favourite team colours. Beer stands. Merchandising stores. Manufacturer displays. The works.

I promptly bought myself a Michael Schumacher Official Collection series Ferrari Cap. With the prancing horse and the #1 sign. Yea!

And then I sat down and practised some high speed photography on the much slower cars that were racing on the circuit as a prelude to what was coming. I think I did quite well, but capturing these cars is a lot different from capturing the actual thing.

The weather was hot and humid. I was sweating all over the place. Even in the shade, it was extremely hot.

And then there was Qualifying.

We were already told that Schumi had had an engine change and so would drop 10 places for the race. So it was interesting to see what he would do.

I have to tell you...the sound is deafening!

Imagine a bad quality speaker. Now imagine feeding 100W RMS to the speakers. The way they will crackle is how your ears feel every single time an F1 car goes past. The vibrations you feel on your chest are part of the F1 experience.

You can hear the cars change into 7th gear on the start finish straight and it's almost like the gear DROPS. The sound it makes is amazing. Like a big DHOM.

So the starting grid looks like this:

1. Fisi
2. Button
3. Rosberg (Well done! Fabulous for only his second GP)
4. Schumi (drops 10 places tomorrow)
5. Webber
6. Montoya
7. Kimi
8. Alonso
9. Klein
10. Ralf (also has an engine change...blew up during qualifying)

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

That's a bummer...

A friend of mine and I had decided to go to Sepang for the GP this year and had planned it all. He had booked the tickets and I had booked the hotel. We had taken care of our flight tickets and so were all set to fly into KLIA and meet up on the morning of the 18th so that we could catch the Saturday morning practice session.

I called this friend in the afternoon on Friday and he told me that he was just getting ready for the flight (packing and the works) and that he would see me at my arrival gate in KL.

Then I got a call from him, late in the night. It seems that Malaysian Airlines was refusing to let him board because he does not have an ECNR stamped on his passport.

Now an ECNR on an Indian Passport means "Immigration Check Not Required". It is something that you have to apply for seperately if you applied for your passport before you graduated. ECNR allows you to travel to practically any country. If you dont have ECNR, you cannot go to certain countries. Tonight, my friend discovered that Malaysia fell in that category.

So his trip is off. Now I am in a bigger dilema. He has booked the tickets and the confirmation and pickup is based on his passport number. So here I am with my trip planned and paid for, but with a distinct possibility of not being able to see the GP.

I am planning to go anyways, since I already have the flight and hotel paid for. In case I dont get the tickets, I will just have to buy them there. If they are even available.

Let's see how it goes.

An interesting Singaporean law

I encountered this for the first time in my life.

I am used to buying stuff off the net. DVDs, software, apparel, equipment. You name it. And I have been doing this from India as well.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought some DVDs from DeepDiscountDVD.com (a nice site with prices at least 10% off Amazon). Most of them arrived in 2 weeks. I was waiting for the 3 remaining DVDs from the order when a letter arrived in my letterbox.

It was from SingPost and it said that my package had been retained by Singapore Customs and had been passed to the Media Development Authority (MDA). They had enclosed an address on Maxwell Road where I could go and collect the package.

I could not even remember which DVDs were in this package. And I could not imagine why this particular package should be withheld after some 5 had been delevered to me since I moved to Singapore.

So I went to the MDA office this afternoon and waited for the lone attendant to finish with 2 people ahead of me and then attend to me.

What she offered as an explaination staggered me.

She said that Singapore has a rating system for each movie (PG, PG-13, M-18, etc...) and that each movie needs to be rated (irrespective of where it comes from). She told me that I would have to open the package in front of her and then she would have to check if these movies are exempt or they need to be rated.

So I opened it up to see Bowfinger, Erin Brockowich and Liar Liar peep out at me. The idea of rating these movies was a little too funny for me. The conversation that happened after this was anything but funny, though.

The lady checked for each of these DVD and found that they were all PG rated. So I thought, "OK, so they are rated and so not a problem. Maybe I can watch one of them when I get back home".

Boy, was I wrong!

The lady, very politely, told me that while they were all rated, they needed to be "certified". Which is another way of saying that they need to be tagged on with a certificate. Which, for all I know, will be stuck on the shrinkwrap that comes with the DVD which I will promptly throw away once I get the discs. For which I need to pay a dollar eighty on each title.

This is one of the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

I get my discs on Monday with a sticker ... costing $1.80 each for no reason.

And these are discs that are for personal viewing only.

No wonder a lot of people here buy their movies outside the country. It's things like this that drive up the cost of movies here in Singapore and force genuine buyers like me to shop elsewhere.

I pride myself on my DVD collection, even though my wife gives me a hard time on spending so much money on my DVDs. But I like quality and there is something about an official "Special Edition" disc that makes my heart sing. So I always buy from online stores to keep my costs low.

Looks like I am going to have to cut down on the number of DVDs I buy.

Exhausted to the bone

What a painful last few days....oooh, I am hurting just thinking of them.

The last few days have been ridiculous. Have been working until 2am in the morning and then rushing back to office and working some more.

Apart from that, my mom and my aunts are in town. So after I get back, I have to take them around for dinner and the likes. Only after we get back can I sit down for work. Which is why I am staying up late the last few days.

Yesterday night, I was up until 2:30 making a presentation for this customer conference today. Then I had to wake up at 6:30 this morning and get to the conference venue where I had to setup the display and demo that we were showing. And then there was the standing.

A lot of people came to our booth and at least pretended to be interested in what we were saying...and not just waiting to get the freebies that we had on offer. Overall, quite a successful day. But damn tiring.

I am seriously dead tired.

Have just come back to office to finish off some work which needs to be done today, else a lot of shit will hit a speeding fan on the ceiling. Hopefully I will be done in some time. Then I can go home, eat and crash.

Can't wait to get into bed. Maybe a soak in the bath tub for a while and then hit the snooze.

Funny Singapore traffic rules

I noticed the first part as soon as I landed here. The second part came in only when I started to visit more often.

Assume you are driving a car on Singapore roads. You have come up to a traffic light and you are waiting for it to turn green. Now depending on which way you are going, there are multiple ways in which you will respond.

If you are going straight, you will just wait for the light to turn green and then scram.

If you are turning right, you will slightly nudge your car towards the right and wait for the flow of traffic from the opposite side to ebb before you turn right...even when your signal has not turned green. This is similar to the "Yield" sign on American roads. The opposite side traffic has right of way, but you are OK to take that turn when cars are not headed your way.

If you are turning left, and here is where I find it strange and funny, you will nudge your car a little ahead and let the pedestrians cross the road and then gun the car before the light turns red. When it turns red, you stay put and wait for the light to turn green.

Why do I find it funny, you ask?

Cause Singaporeans will take turns when there is probability of oncoming traffic, but not when there is a certainity of NO traffic coming.

Strange, huh?

The left turn should be a free left turn. Pedestrians and other cars will still have the right of way, again like the "Yield" sign, but you should be able to turn left.

Especially since the country drives on the left hand side of the road.

But then, when were these things based on logic?