Category: Rants

Large Hadron Rap

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A Youtube video containing a rap about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Now that makes it a lot easier to layman like me to understand what it does and why this is done.

And of course our planet isn’t going to implode when we do this… neither will a black hole appear in the middle of our planet to suck everything in as some would like you to believe.

Lyrics: The Large Hadron Rap

Twenty-seven kilometers of tunnel under ground
Designed with mind to send protons around
A circle that crosses through Switzerland and France
Sixty nations contribute to scientific advance
Two beams of protons swing round, through the ring they ride
‘Til in the hearts of the detectors, they’re made to collide
And all that energy packed in such a tiny bit of room
Becomes mass, particles created from the vacuum
And then…

LHCb sees 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 LHC accelerates the protons and the lead
And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head.

We see asteroids and planets, stars galore
We know a black hole resides at each galaxy’s core
But even all that matter cannot explain
What holds all these stars together – something else remains
This dark matter interacts only through gravity
And how do you catch a particle there’s no way to see
Take it back to the conservation of energy
And the particles appear, clear as can be

You see particles flying, in jets they spray
But you notice there ain’t nothin’, goin’ the other way
You say, “My law has just been violated – it don’t make sense!
There’s gotta be another particle to make this balance.”
And it might be dark matter, and for first
Time we catch a glimpse of what must fill most of the known ‘Verse.
Because…

LHCb sees 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.

Antimatter is sort of like matter’s evil twin
Because except for charge and handedness of spin
They’re the same for a particle and its anti-self
But you can’t store an antiparticle on any shelf
Cuz when it meets its normal twin, they both annihilate
Matter turns to energy and then it dissipates

When matter is created from energy
Which is exactly what they’ll do in the LHC
You get matter and antimatter in equal parts
And they try to take that back to when the universe starts
The Big Bang – back when the matter all exploded
But the amount of antimatter was somehow eroded
Because when we look around we see that matter abounds
But antimatter’s nowhere to be found.
That’s why…

LHCb sees 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 LHC accelerates the protons and the lead
And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head.

The Higgs Boson – that’s the one that everybody talks about.
And it’s the one sure thing that this machine will sort out
If the Higgs exists, they ought to see it right away
And if it doesn’t, then the scientists will finally say
“There is no Higgs! We need new physics to account for why
Things have mass. Something in our Standard Model went awry.”

But the Higgs – I still haven’t said just what it does
They suppose that particles have mass because
There is this Higgs field that extends through all space
And some particles slow down while other particles race
Straight through like the photon – it has no mass
But something heavy like the top quark, it’s draggin’ its ***
And the Higgs is a boson that carries a force
And makes particles take orders from the field that is its source.
They’ll detect it….

LHCb sees 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.

Now some of you may think that gravity is strong
Cuz when you fall off your bicycle it don’t take long
Until you hit the earth, and you say, “Dang, that hurt!”
But if you think that force is powerful, you’re wrong.
You see, gravity – it’s weaker than Weak
And the reason why is something many scientists seek
They think about dimensions – we just live in three
But maybe there are some others that are too small to see
It’s into these dimensions that gravity extends
Which makes it seem weaker, here on our end.
And these dimensions are “rolled up” – curled so tight
That they don’t affect you in your day to day life
But if you were as tiny as a graviton
You could enter these dimensions and go wandering on
And they’d find you…

When LHCb sees 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 LHC accelerates the protons and the lead
And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head.

Mobile Broadband

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It’s been a while since the firewall guys in the office sealed up the one last hole that allowed us to access to chat programs (e.g. Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger etc.) or 3rd party sites which allowed us to do the same.

All the while I have been simply using it on my Blackberry and there are drawbacks. It’s very slow on the Blackberry and chatting with several people can become quite a chore. On top of that, I won’t know immediately when someone sent me a message because I do not look at my Blackberry all the time.

So I finally had enough of it and signed up for unlimited download mobile Broadband plan with M1 as they are giving a special offer of 50% off the monthly subscription, along with a new Huawei USB 3G modem as long as I take up a 2-year contract.

As I have heard some pretty negative feedback about M1’s mobile broadband plans from a friend, I ran it to some ‘stress test’ by patching WindowsXP from SP2 all the way to post-SP3 wirelessly with it. And it was pretty alright because it hasn’t dropped at all. Speed was quite acceptable, considering the size of SP3 itself (316MB) and it was done more or less during working hours.

Finally, I can now chat with my friends in the office over Windows Live Messenger, and free myself from Wireless @SG connection, which in my opinion, is as stable as the sea breeze – which at times comes in gusts or nothing!



Picture done by Rinaz

Anyway, I will be putting another ad unit at the end of each blog post I made, either from Advertlets or Adsense from now on as some kind of personal ‘experiment’. I know some of you detest it when a blog has more than one ad unit on display but please bear with me if the page is going to load somewhat slower due to the ads.

But please do not click on them or do anythinn funny with them as I am not dying for the money I will make from this in any case. Also, it might fxxk up some of the statistics I am trying to gather. This is just part of a ‘personal project’ to something else I or some friends maybe doing down the road.

If you want to know what, all I can say now is that it will not be another blog aggregator because just like the alligator, blog aggregators have very much reached an evolutionary dead end.

Bashing Foreign Talents

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The in-thing these days, seems to be the bashing of foreign talents. From Amit Nagpal’s letter to the forum on getting a flat direct from the HDB to Li Jiawei dragging the Singapore flag on the ground in the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Are you ‘in’?

Frankly, I might have an opinion about foreign talents in this nation, and I have probably blogged a few times about them too – mostly on whether some of them are really talented or my disbelief that those jobs cannot be filled by Singaporeans. Otherwise, my unhappiness is with foreigners whose CVs look impressive but can’t work for nuts, or those who thinks they should be treated like kings as if we owed them a living. I am quite sure some of you would agree with me here as you have run into them at work, or read about foreign athletes quitting on us after we spent a lot of money nurturing them. And these are the black sheep – the fallen talents – which have given them all a bad name.

Over time, I have tried to look this objectively. Foreigners take up many jobs in our economy. For e.g. the hard labor workforce, i.e. the people who are doing jobs that most Singaporeans wouldn’t do (or possibly can’t do at all) even if that means they have to beg on the streets. These are the people who have the lowest chance of even getting a PR. Consider the ‘environmental engineers’ (road sweepers and cleaners by another name), the China or Bangladeshi worker you see digging the holes at road works and building our new flats / condominiums, the China person at your local coffee shops taking your order or making yor fishball noodles etc. When some of these people go, just which of us – except maybe some of our old folks who are above retirement age – would even consider filling some of these jobs?

Some wouldn’t consider these people as real talents, but from a different perspective, their hard skills is actually a talent. Some of us probably don’t know how to mix cement for nuts, or dig a hole better than some of them. Simply put, I would say we should at least appreciate their contribution to the comfort we enjoy, though we might not like their presence because we dislike their behavior and manners. But remember, it is not entirely their fault for not being better mannered or more educated. They didn’t really have a choice when it comes to their land of birth.

As to Li Jiawei’s ‘dragging of the flag’ during the ceremony, I have looked at the video on Youtube. Yes, a part of the flag was on the ground and a lot of us think of the fact that the flag should not touch the ground because of our National Service background. But does she know these things? Was she even told of it when we screamed about how she dragged our flag on the ground of China – the land of her birth?

Now, consider this: in a few more years, Jiawei would have been lived in Singapore longer than she has been in China. Now, some of us may have ancestors who has lived in China longer than they are in Singapore. I am a 2nd or 3rd Generation Singaporean, depending on maternal or paternal lineage.My maternal grandfather came from Guangzhou to Singapore before the Japanese invasion. My paternal great-grandfather came from Hong Kong probably in the early 1900s. What difference are they from Li Jiawei? Li Jiawei, as a child, left her home to come here. She has persevered unlike some of those who gave up and really went home. So give her a break already!

I admit I am no lover of Foreign Talents. However, I disliked some of them because some of them did not live up to what they claimed they are. Some of us have definitely worked with those who clearly have no clue what they are doing in spite of what they claimed they know. I am also unhappy with the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme or whatever because I felt the money rewarded to them for their performance can be better used for other social needs. I might not be right about some of these things, but at least I don’t just dislike all of them for no better reasons.

Anyway, I also disliked some of them because they think Singapore owed them as if they are doing us a favor while our country gave them the opportunity which maybe available in their home country, but probably with fewer perks. Granted they can take their skills elsewhere with a better offer, but that’s nothing to boast about since even the ‘environmental engineer’ cleaning my rubbish bin everyday would probably work for another contractor or in another country if he is capable of leaving here to go there. Just like I would say to Singaporeans who always complain about Singapore – leave! I would say the same to these FTs unless you really have an exceptional talent that no one else could replace. In other words, if Stephen Hawkins comes to Singapore and lecture at NUS or NTU, and then he chose to leave, then this country has indeed lose a rare talent. But if you are just say… a currency trader, then come on… where you came from there’s probably someone else who is even better for a lesser price tag.

Simply put, my fellow Singaporeans, let us be clear what we are unhappy with, and not just go all out and whack FTs with even the lamest excuses we can think of. It brings shame upon all of us and make us no better than xenophobic skinheads we read about in other countries.

Some thoughts…

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A 47-million dollars church building

I once raved about a local mega-church spending $47 million into building a titanium-clad church building and a friend – a non believer – pointed out that he felt there’s really nothing wrong with it because like the 5.5-ton gold Buddha in Thailand, the intention was probably to inspire – i.e. to let the believers see just how they have been collective blessed – or rewarded, depending on your point of view – for their faith.

I do not deny that a $47 millionchurch building may have left believers in awe and inspired by the goodness of God. But unlike the 5.5-ton gold Buddha, which will probably outlast our species even if the human species go extinct, the $47 million church building was, from what I have gathered, built on 30-year leased land. In other words, after 30 years they will have to tear that building down and return the plot of land as it is to the state. That will be approximately the equivalent of paying $1.6 million a year for the lease, and I am not even sure if that $47 million even include land cost.

Simply put, the 5.5-ton gold Buddha would have continue to inspire the Thai people and impress tourists for many generations to come, but in one generation the $47 million church building will only live on in photos or the memories of those who still lived. It begs the question, would God have look less favorable upon a ‘lesser’ church building in lands with strong persecution and the believers built with their own bare hands and material obtained from nature?

It makes one wonder, how those who are charged as stewards of His blessings actually account to Him that this is a prudent use of money. In fact, I wonder how they actually justified that as being part of God’s Will.

Anyway, here’s something out of point: Did you know in the Forbidden Palace in Beijing there’s a almost 300-year-old art piece carved out of a piece of jade weighing almost 5.4 tons? Took them years to mine it from some mountain in Xinjiang and – if I am not wrong – 3 years to ship to Beijing, and then another 6 years to send it to Yangzhou to carve it into the art piece it is today and back.


Photos of the Jade Piece:
[1] (zoom out – showing full jade)
[2] (zoom in – showing part of the art work)

Reality and Ideals

I did not think Cao Cao [曹操] has in his mind all along the plan to seize and hold the Han Emperor hostage as a mean to dominate the other warlords. Indeed, before he even participated in the any military action, be it against the Yellow Turban rebels [黄巾军], or before he participate in the coalition of forces against the warlord Dong Zhuo [董卓], he was nothing more than a security official – sort of the equivalent of the Deputy Commissioner of the Police Department – in the northern part of Imperial capital.

Do note that at times, the younger Cao Cao even seek advice on how to attain certain near term objectives: e.g. stabilizing the areas he rule, how to restore order to the Empire etc. His stature and power only increased over a long period of time – from general to Prince of Wei – over a period of 36 years [184AD to 220AD].

What I am trying is this: be realistic and not idealistic. Many people who achieve greatness or their objectives in the end normally do not let his opponents or any other people determine how it should be done or what the rules of the game is. They look at the reality at that time to make the best of it, or redefine what the rules should be and work towards their ideals one step at a time.

In short, to ask for certain plans to be revealed before the person is given a task is an absurd proposition which only the Tali-PAP Men-In-White can devise to fxxk up the opposition. I don’t even know what to think about the people who would accept that!

Transportation and ERP…

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I love my country, even though at times I may feel I don’t belong, even when I find some of the things the Tali-PAP do to be quite repulsive…

I have definitely always make noise about what I found repulsive, and some of my friends have definitely heard or read some of my more radical and insane comments. But whatever those insane and dumb comments were, there’s always what can realistically be achieve, and what cannot. And having that realization is what separates me from the insane and the stupid.

Thus, I wrote a post to arguing that the opposition parties are in no position now to take over and it is my considered opinion they should avoid making a fool of themselves by doing that. From the way I looked at it, a people – government gahmen relationship is not that of a girlfriend – boyfriend relationship, but one more akin to an employer – employee relationship. For e.g. when we got our asses kicked out from the Federation of Malaysia, the Tali-PAP’s situation was more like that of a junior staff discovering himself being thrust into the position of a senior and it rose up to the challenge. Was the Tali-PAP ready for that? I doubt so when I remember MM Lee shedding his tears on national TV realizing just what a mess he has gotten himself into, for fighting for a Malaysia for all Malaysians.

But in the case of our opposition parties now, it is more like that of a fresh graduate looking for a job and with nothing much to show except for his FYP (Final Year Projects) or internships. For one to argue that the opposition has nothing to show and thus shouldn’t be allowed into parliament would be equal to the argument that no fresh graduate should ever be given a job for his lack of experience, or having no clue on how he should be doing his job! The fact that both Potong Pasir and Hougang have taken that step to vote in Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Khiang respectively, would say a lot about what they think a people – gahmen relationship should be.

Anyway, let me categorically say: the current system put in place by the Tali-PAP still works, or at least has worked for the past 43 years since our nation’s forced independence from Malaysia. There is nothing seriously wrong yet with the current system for Singaporeans to demand for a change in leadership. But there are kinks in the system that should be addressed, and it is my opinion that feedback over some of the kinks are not seriously address as mentioned in my earlier post here. But do note, unlike some of the unrealistic whiners out there, I am not saying everything I talked about in that post – from town council sinking funds to GIC investments – must be addressed, but rather the gahmen should look into what can realistically be addressed and do so without any serious compromise to our nation’s financial security.

Next, other than the kinks in the system, the gahmen should start treating us with a little more respect. And I am not talking about respect as in the gahmen should cower and fear us, but rather it should understand that most Singaporeans are a reasonable and understanding lot. Treat us as a partner in nation building, since we are clearly educated enough to be rational and logical. For starters, make some serious efforts in telling us why they are doing certain things. Once these things are explained nicely, most of us – with the exception of the unreasonable, irrational and illogical whiners – will really just accept it and find our own ways to work around them. Let me take for example here the ERP (Electronic Road Pricing).

Singaporeans find it really hard to accept ERP because they are sick and tired of the gahmen telling us that the ERP is a traffic congestion measure. Just quit trying to justify ERP’s existence by telling us which other countries have also adopted it. To us, all of that is really total bullshit. While congestion control might be one aspect of ERP, it is not much talked about ERP being a fairer method at taxing all road users for usage. We may have heard some mini$ter$ talk about how road tax has been cut to make ERP as cost neutral as possible to car owners, but it is difficult for someone who takes a cab regularly, or a company with a fleet of vans to see it as cost neutral to their activities. Is our gahmen not aware the cut in road tax has done nothing to alleviate the suffering of a person taking the cab, and a delivery company which has several vehicles passing under the ERP several times daily will hardly find that bearable?

Thus, it would have been just far more acceptable to tell us that ERP will gradually replace road tax as an attrition tax for the maintenance of our roads, and that all road users – not only car owners – are expected to do their part. It gives every road user no excuse from paying ERP and in a way they would be far less unhappy looking at ERP gantries popping out everywhere – even HDB estates – in the future. On top of that, the people may not like to hear it, but make it clear it also served the purpose of driving those people who didn’t like to pay it to use public transports. In short, it would be clearly obvious to a lot of us that ERP as part of a multi-pronged plan in dealing with the transportation matter as a whole.

And to address the complaints of those who are driven to use public transports that the system itself is inefficient, it must also be shown to them that there are plans in place, for e.g. to put in more MRT lines in the next 5 – 10 years. On top of which, it is also hope that the ERP will ensure there will be a steady ridership in the new systems as otherwise, there will be not enough users to justify their construction.

Simply put, the gahmen needs to seriously brush up on its public relation skills. On the top, the big picture maybe clear to the bigwigs, but Singaporeans may not necessarily understand all of them tie in together as they look at ERP as nothing more than a daily nightmare. Having the mini$ter respond to a question here and there once in awhile, or having the news comes out in disjointed parts doesn’t really help us Singaporeans to see the big picture. Just how many of us reads the White Paper or whatever shit anyway? Too many words and it bores us since we are also busy people trying to earn a living. The gahmen should make full use of SPH, and use one issue of Sunday Times or Nanyang Zaobao, to put all these things in simple graphical form to link them altogether to make it easily understandable – just like those pictures in letters informing us why we are getting GST rebates.

I am not asking for the gahmen to please us, but from what I gather from my friends and colleagues whenever we discuss some of these issues, giving us a proper, detailed explanation is what they expected. Do not just presume we can’t grasp something on a bigger scale. That shouldn’t be too hard for the gahmen to do, right?

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