Large Hadron Collider made easy

 

Ok, so the world did not end after all, and I still need to do up my reports. But seems like the worldwide interest in the LHC has picked up and increasing.

Think the Large Hadron Collider is too complex for you? A couple of people got together to sort of simplify it and made it into a rap.

2.3 million views, and over 7,500 comments. And growing.

Come on sing along..

LHCb see where the antimatter’s gone.

ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions,

CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind:

They’re looking for whatever new particles they can find

The end of the world?

The world as we know it will come to a spectacular end starting this Wednesday. Not another doomsday fanatic you say.

But according to some learned men, the world will be swallowed up by a black hole created in the depths of Switzerland and France.

To be a bit more specific, the Large Hadron Colldier will be switched on this Wednesday. In what has been labelled the world’s biggest ever scientific experiment, scientists will attempt to accelerate protons and smash them into each other. In other words, trying to recreate what possibly happened billions of years ago during the Big Bang.

Several reports of the LHC starting up here and here.

But from a personal viewpoint, I think it’s rather cool. If this helps to answer some questions my friends and I try to attempt when we are half-drunk or deprived of sleep; why not?

For those who actually were worrying about the end of the world and stuff, read this, a list what are the best and worst that could possibly happen.

Well if the world does start to end on Wednesday, I’m sure there will be task force from the USA; majority white, but with the other minorities mentioned as well to save the world.

Red pill, blue pill

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Given my current situation, I have no idea which choice is the red or the blue pill. But guess that’s the thing with choices, sometimes just got to take one and stick with it.

Haha, sorry for being so cryptic. I explain if things go alright..

Youth Olympics Village at NTU

Well as the title suggests, the athletes Village for the 2010 Youth Olympics games has been shifted to NTU’s very own garden campus.

Athletes and team officials coming for the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in 2010 will now be staying at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

In a surprise announcement yesterday, YOG organisers said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved a proposal to site the Youth Olympic Village at NTU’s existing campus off Jalan Bahar.

News articles here and here.

So is this news to rejoice for NTU students? Well, on first look it definitedly seems like it.

Seems like a total of 11 halls will be used for accomodating the 5000 odd athletes and delegates. I’m guessing some of the older halls like 4,5 and 7 did not make the cut. And since only Halls 3 and 16 are air-conditioned, the rest will be renovated with air-cons and with new furnishing in bedrooms.

NTU said it might need to postpone the start of its new academic year by about two weeks, till after the Games in late August 2010, so as not to displace students who will be staying in those hostels.

More good news.. i think.

And now to see if the school admin actually passes on the cost of the construction by increasing rental fees. And even though there is no chance for me to take part in YOG 2010, at least i’m sure i’ll be a part of it.

Whenever you are down..

When ever I feel down or feel dispirited about something, which is quite often when schooling in uni, I sort take my inspiration and motivation from speeches.

Great speeches have this effect on me, the goose bumps rising feeling that makes you want to go out and do something. Just like the feeling that you get after watching the movie ‘300′, even though it’s your 5th time.

I think making speeches in public is not easy; you more often see people making a fool out of themselves. Either that or their speech is rather forgettable. Giving a meaningful speech and to infuse it with some humour is even harder.

Great speeches have the ability to transport you to another world; one where you are allowed to pursue your dreams, one where all your current problems have disappeared, and one where the choice is ultimately yours. Which is why I kind of loved Steve Job’s “Connecting the Dots” speech.

I keep some sort of a collection of speeches which I think are rather interesting and inspiring and re-read once a while. And I came across a pretty decent speech while reading Mr Wang Says So. A friend of his, Adrian Tan was invited to be the G.O.H at one of NTU’s convocations last week.

A brief excerpt:

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Pretty interesting? Read the whole speech here.

Feeling the pinch

Even though the cost of almost everything has been increasing for the last several months, it was recently that I realized how absurd it has become.

So after watching a movie at Jurong Point, me and some friends decided to have a bite before heading home. And food prices there are nothing short of absurd.

One of the menus went like this:

2 plain Pratha: $1.80

1 egg Pratha: $1.80

Since when was one plain pratha worth 90 cents. Crazy. Absurd.

Kopi-O : $1.30

Kopi-O ice: $1.80

60 cents for ice?? Never knew that ice was becoming a rare commodity in Singapore as well.

I was having dinner at a food court near my place. And there was a striking similarity between all the stalls. Every stall had masking-taped over it’s original price list and written down a new and obviously higher price.

This ‘phenomenon’ also occurred in Tamil Nadu when I was bag-packing there. But the difference was that the people protested, held rallies and forced the government to issue a statement to reduce the prices of meals in restaurants.

Yes, the likelihood of that happening is the same as the likelihood of taxi companies dropping the 30 cents fuel surcharge when oil prices drop. Or the likelihood of catching Mas Selamat in the near future.

Haha.. just realized how bitter I sounded.

Well to quote the Joker; Why so serious?

Falling sick and how not to remove a ingrown toe-nail

Yeah the title is lengthy and weird, but that’s what exactly I’m going to talk about. Sorry for the lack of imagination. I spent quite a bit of time in India falling sick or having this infection or that, so this post is dedicated to that.

When I landed in Tamil Nadu towards the last week of May, I was rather exciting and was raring to go, wanting to experience a good holiday. And eating good food is definitedly part of having a good experience.

So once I landed in India, I was all Anthony Bourdain-ish. Eating all kinds of street food, never refusing a chance to drink at the local tea shop and just savouring and marveling at the variety of vegetarian food on offer. (and cheap too).

I was a happy man, until what probably only happens in the out-takes of Anthony Bourdain’s show happened.I was down with food poisoning and was reduced to just eating diluted porridge and if my stomach was up to it, some herbal soup.

It is not a very pleasant feeling when you suddenly wake up at 7am because you feel something is rising in your throat, and run to the front door, only to realise in horror that it is locked, and now you frantically run to the back door, only to lose the race against your semi-disgested dinner from yesterday.

And so my Mum ordered me to wash up and I took a long shower. I was given a coffee to drink to feel better. But within 5 minutes I was at my front yard hurling the coffee out. (thankfully door wasn’t locked) And so this went on 2 days before I was able to eat something solid.

While all this was happening, my eye suddenly decided to protest and started turning red. At first I thought it was something to do me wearing contacts; but even after that the reddness didn’t drop until I used some strong eye drops.

This is how my eye looked:

And if that was not enough:

You see, I was cutting my toenail when I had a very small cut because I cut too close too the skin. Normally in Singapore I would have just ignored it and it would have healed by itself. Ahh.. But since the village I was in so dusty, dust started entering the wound and pus started growing. Every morning I would spend some removing the pus because even the pus had become so dirty with exposure.

So instead of healing naturally, the wound starting swelling and imagine a wave crashing on the beach; likewise the swollen flesh covered half of my toe nail and wound promptly closed up. But since it wasn’t fully healed, it was still painful.

After delaying for 2 weeks I went to see the doctor. (I didn’t exactly trust the doctors in my village) So I explained to the doctor:

Me: “Sir, my flesh is a bit swollen, nothing wrong with the nail. So is it alright if you make 2 small slits at the flesh and squeeze out all the excess flesh?”

Doc: “Hmm ok, but this is different more like an ingrown toenail. Why don’t you proceed to the operating table first?”

I was lying at the operating table thinking it’ll be quick one. The doctor entered with 2 nurses and asked the nurse for a injection of some substance. He was just looking casually at my toe and without any warning, just plunged the needle into my toe! Because my toe was rather sensitive to pain, I felt as if my heart just jumped.

(Was thinking of including a pic of my swollen toe here, but decided it was too disgusting)

And even before I could recover, or for that matter of fact, the painkillers to kick in, he took out a pair or scissors with 2 extra pointy bits at the end and shoved it into the gap between the toe and nail. He then proceeds to tear and twist and tear some more until half of the nail is torn out. The painkillers only kicked in as he made the final tear.

I have no idea how an ingrown toenail is removed in Singapore, but it is definitedly not in the manner above which more of a butcher at work. But my toe did recover fully and I didn’t have to amputate it or something.

It’s a good thing my red eye healed pretty fast or they would have just plucked my eye out to give a good cleaning!

Back home.. finally.

And finally I’m back in Singapore. Looking back at the past 2 months, 47 days straight is truly a very long time to be spent backpacking around India, and I’m convinced I have barely scratched the tip of the iceberg called India.

From the towering millenium old temples of South India to the southern most point of India to “God’s own country – Kerela” to Delhi and Agra, the Taj Mahal to the deserts of Rajastan and finally to the foothills of the Himalayas. And forgeting pretty good and cheap food and oh so wonderful tea for just 5Rs.One incredible journey packed into 47 days. I realize i can write and talk about India for at least months, such was the extent that I was am captivated by India.

As much as I am keen to share every single great experience with everyone, I realize that I simply can’t write everything down here for it might be a bit too long and draggy and that some things are just better to be seen and experienced rather than read about. So instead will create my own ‘Best of India’ list.

Moving on, the first few weeks in India offered me a chance at a completely different lifestyle. There I was in my parents’ hometown with a new handphone number known only to a few, and with only 2 Internet cafes with 3 computers each with terribly slow loading times and frequent power cuts which is good as having no access to the internet.

It was good for a while; no one calling me to do this or that, no stress, no commitments, just a carefree life living from day to day. Or it seemed so. For reality eventually caught up.

I missed my application deadline for my registering of next semster’s modules due to a massive power cut. And mails started piling up and I started to fall back on the activities/CCAs in which I had a responsiblity in.

But life goes on. I just got to work that extra bit harder to catch up and complete what ever else I need to complete. Which is what I’m going to do now.

45 days in India

As my title suggests, I’m flying off to India later today for a whooping 45 day holiday. Been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. To put very generally 4 weeks in South India and 2 weeks in the North.

Til the next time I lay my hands on a computer with an Internet connection..

Something you probably didn’t know about NTU

When I first thought of studying at an university back in high school, I had envisioned something like this in mind.

Huge old buildings of historical significance with lush green sweeping gardens and a lake for students to relax around and with preferably a river running through the university for water sports. What comes to mind is the typical and rather cliched photo where several students are relaxing under a tree and discussing something.

Well, I didn’t end up in a school with a history of several hundred years with castles and lakes and forests as surroundings. I eventually went to NTU, a school with a history of 50 plus years and with a garden campus to boot. (Or atleast that’s what the prospectus said).

Not that I’m complaining, life has been interesting for the past one year.

Some claim that NTU is a ‘dead’ place with ‘no life’. As compared to high school, ’school spirit’ is definitedly lacking as well. So most people just go thru life in NTU without finding more about the history of the school or even exploring its huge campus.

To digress a bit, I kind of like to look back at the history of the schools I’ve been to. Not too sure if this is prevalent in most people, but I think people want to relate to something great. It is like imagining that your grand-dad was a big shot general back in WW2 or you descended from a line of a great figure in history. Cool eh?

But back to the point. The reason of this post was because of a ’structure’ I stumbled across in a not so private place. Meaning it was placed in quite a prominent place, but most people have no idea what it is or really bother about it.

I guess only NTU students can actually apply to the rest of the post.

How many of you guys have actually walked to the Student Service Centre? At least once for everyone.

Now the question is: How many actually noticed the sundial there? Yes, haha, there is actually a sundial right in the middle of the carpark.

Looks familiar? Yup it is actually a sundial. And a working one too.

This is the front, which gives some infomation of the location of the sundial and the inscription reads “when the shadow is line with the North-South axis and it happens to be full moon, the sundial will open up to give access to the Chamber of Secrets and release the monsters hidden in the depth of Nanyang University. Erected on May 27 1969, 13th Anniversary of Nanyang University.

And this is the back. Giving more infomation about the sundial and stating it was built “in commemoration of the 150th year of the founding of Singapore”. I guess the english words are below the chinese characters due to Nanyang University being a chinese-medium school back then.

I took this picture around 7.15am. Since the inscription asked to make a addition of 35mins to the scale, it is pretty accurate. When I tried googling for more infomation, just couldn’t find anything at all.

So I might write about more ‘interesting structures’ I notice around NTU, but til then, let me continue my search for the Chamber of Secrets which houses the serpent which roams around Nanyang Lake.