Sunday, March 15, 2009 -


2 weeks ago, we had a round table discussion. The topic again was on CSC and as with any discussion there are some who were with this technology and some including myself who were against it. Those who support it state that it will help dramatically bring down the carbon dioxide emission to atmosphere by a huge percentage as according to scientist. They also state the benefit of such a technology and it advantages that it will provide eventually. Those who are against talk about the dangers of implementing this technology and its side effect it may caused. Below are the overviews of the discussion.

Supporter claim that the technology will help reduce the effects of global warming as instead of emitting to the atmosphere, the plan is to emit to the ground where it will cause less harm. Since storing in ground will not cause any global warming problem. They also state that with this implementation, it will also provide a fuel source when the grounds are filled up when time passes thus, making the technology renewable and more importantly eco friendly.

Those who oppose the technology, state that the harms or accidents which might occur can caused a catastrophic accident such as the Chernobyl incident in 1986. They state that if there was a leak that occur, it might devastate the environment and these side effects should be take note of. We argue that the technology would be safe but the point is that there is no gurantee for any safety since accidents are generally unavoidable


Sunday, March 15, 2009


Monday, February 2, 2009 -

An Inconvenient Truth
("What got us into trouble is not what we don't know but what we know that aren't so")

After watch the excellent documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" by ex US vice-president Al Gore, I can't help to imagine how much impact we, the human race, had done to the very planet we lived in, Earth. Mr Gore, made an excellent presentation on the harms of Global Warming by beginning his speech on the causes of global warming to the harms it had and will caused in the future. One important point in his speech was that we paid very little attention to the matter even though we knew about the devastating effect of Global Warming. The phase, which was stated from the movie, clearly reflects the situation we are in. We do have the knowledge of what Global Warming is, but we are simply not doing anything about it. Gore pointed out a fact,which I strongly agree, that the price of doing nothing won't be for us to play but our children, who will had to live with the consequences of our mistakes.

Lets us examine on what Singapore had done for its role in the Global Warming. Since Singapore takes its education policy very seriously, it is no doubt that educating students on environment issues is part of the educational syllabus. Singapore also spent much time in developing new technologies to help reduce the country greenhouse emission. Through education, we could educate the young allowing them to be more aware of the environmental crisis but as from the phase above, the question is not just about knowing it but what are we going to do. Using technology to combat Global Warming will need time and money during the research phase and that could be already too late for us. In short, from my personal point of view, Singapore had not done much in the environment front.

It is true that Singapore policies on using education and technology to combat Global Warming has shown considerable results over the years. For example, we are seeing more and more students from the younger generation taking clean energy courses in their tertiary education and participating in more environmental events. Improvements in the technology sector had lead to the use of more efficient form of energy such as Solar power and bio fuels. However, they are still pretty much in the initial stages. All these policies will need time for its result to take place, not saying that it is futile, Singapore, and perhaps many other countries, should do is to follow an policy that will provide an immediate effect instead of waiting for 10 years to solve the problem.

Countries like Germany and Japan emphasis heavily on their environmental policies. They encourages their citizens to practice the 3Rs as part of their daily lifestyles but the best part, they reward their citizens for being green. Paying dividends annually to "green" citizens. Their policies had paid off, according to an issue in time magazine, Germany greenhouse outputs did not increased from the last 20 years but saw a decrease as well even with an expanding economy. Its proves that if policies are executed properly, it does not matter whether it requires high tech equipment and others, will work. Thus, Singapore should follow the model set by Germany as what other countries, including the USA, should have done.

The debate on economy vs the Environment still remains inconclusive. It is no doubt environment policies will affect the economy in some manner. Example, the introduction of bio-fuels will seriously affect the oil industries and may even further worsen the economic recession the world is currently undergoing and soared in food prices, will no doubt cause much hunger in developing countries. However, it is a point to take note that with the world, there is no economy as well and the effects are equally disastrous. My conclusion, there should be a strong balance between the two and something we should include in our policies.


Monday, February 02, 2009


Saturday, January 24, 2009 -

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Saturday, January 24, 2009


Friday, January 23, 2009 -

An Inconvenient Truth
("What got us into trouble is not what we don't know but what we know that aren't so")

After watch the excellent documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" by ex US vice-president Al Gore, I can't help to imagine how much impact we, the human race, had done to the very planet we lived in, Earth. Mr Gore, made an excellent presentation on the harms of Global Warming by beginning his speech on the causes of global warming to the harms it had and will caused in the future. One important point in his speech was that we paid very little attention to the matter even though we knew about the devastating effect of Global Warming. The phase, which was stated from the movie, clearly reflects the situation we are in. We do have the knowledge of what Global Warming is, but we are simply not doing anything about it. Gore pointed out a fact,which I strongly agree, that the price of doing nothing won't be for us to play but our children, who will had to live with the consequences of our mistakes.

Lets us examine on what Singapore had done for its role in the Global Warming. Since Singapore takes its education policy very seriously, it is no doubt that educating students on environment issues is part of the educational syllabus. Singapore also spent much time in developing new technologies to help reduce the country greenhouse emission. Through education, we could educate the young allowing them to be more aware of the environmental crisis but as from the phase above, the question is not just about knowing it but what are we going to do. Using technology to combat Global Warming will need time and money during the research phase and that could be already too late for us. In short, from my personal point of view, Singapore had not done much in the environment front.

It is true that Singapore policies on using education and technology to combat Global Warming has shown considerable results over the years. For example, we are seeing more and more students from the younger generation taking clean energy courses in their tertiary education and participating in more environmental events. Improvements in the technology sector had lead to the use of more efficient form of energy such as Solar power and bio fuels. However, they are still pretty much in the initial stages. All these policies will need time for its result to take place, not saying that it is futile, Singapore, and perhaps many other countries, should do is to follow an policy that will provide an immediate effect instead of waiting for 10 years to solve the problem.

Countries like Germany and Japan emphasis heavily on their environmental policies. They encourages their citizens to practice the 3Rs as part of their daily lifestyles but the best part, they reward their citizens for being green. Paying dividends annually to "green" citizens. Their policies had paid off, according to an issue in time magazine, Germany greenhouse outputs did not increased from the last 20 years but saw a decrease as well even with an expanding economy. Its proves that if policies are executed properly, it does not matter whether it requires high tech equipment and others, will work. Thus, Singapore should follow the model set by Germany as what other countries, including the USA, should have done.

The debate on economy vs the Environment still remains inconclusive. It is no doubt environment policies will affect the economy in some manner. Example, the introduction of bio-fuels will seriously affect the oil industries and may even further worsen the economic recession the world is currently undergoing and soared in food prices, will no doubt cause much hunger in developing countries. However, it is a point to take note that with the world, there is no economy as well and the effects are equally disastrous. My conclusion, there should be a strong balance between the two and something we should include in our policies.






Friday, January 23, 2009


Saturday, January 17, 2009 -

Ok guys (Ladies and Gentlemen), this is the first reading assignment for EG1471, so feel free to comment on the essay that I had written below.

In the article, "The expanding world of engineers" by Professor Seeram Ramakrishna, stated that the role of Engineers had been expanding rapidly over the years. Engineers are not just limited to the manufacturing industries alone. They also played a crucial role in other industries as well such as the finance and service sector. Today,engineers are the dominant players in the Singapore economy and no doubt the driving force for the future. It is very common for many people to think that engineers just build things and have very little prospects. However, since I am in the Engineering trade, I can confidently state that the prospects of an engineers are limitless. What makes engineers so important in the Singapore thee way that they are trained to think.

Building and constructing things are part of the many roles an engineer and it is incorrect to view Engineers as builders. Engineers have to learn to design an item or system as well and this provides him with skills that are useful, even outside of his trade. For example, if we are task to design a device, we look at several important factors. First, is how are we going to make the device work and look at the amount of available resources we have. Secondly, the situation is always changing and we have to think carefully for the best design for the system. For example, if we are to design an electrical device and found out that in the latter stages we have a lack of crucial materials in constructing the device or supposedly discovered serious flaws in the system, we will have to find an alternative mean to the problem. Some of these alternative solution would have to be thought fast in order to meet the dateline. This is when the Engineer developed their skills. Skills such as analysing the problems and thinking of the best alternative solutions as quickly as possible, has proven to be useful in many sector, one of the many reasons why banks are hiring more and more Engineers despite their trade. From my personal experience with assignments and projects, problems always happen and I received very little assistance from my tutors. Many would probably see this matter as a dead end,however, one should not see it in that manner. Without much assistance, I was forced to find the solution myself, either through books or the internet, and this had proven to work extremely well for me, as it forced me to be less dependent and enables me to find other problems much efficiently. Through this form of education, I had developed skills which over my academic years, found to be extremely useful even beyond the scope of my training such as managing a CCA club and working in other jobs, not as an engineer.

Similarly, we can see that this approach is extremely reliable not just in Engineering world but the finance world and many other sectors as well, one of the many reasons why engineers are welcome in many other industries outside of their trade. Engineers think in a more practical and specific approach and not imagined ideas. This differentiated an Engineer from a Scientist. Scientist usually thinks in a more theoretical manner and would conduct or set up a complex system, which in some cases, is practically impossible. An engineer would take a more systematic approach and set up a much simpler system that is able to work in the real work. Not to humiliate the Scientist role in the industries, scientist and engineers will always need to work together in order to create an effective system, as Engineers will need scientific theories develop by the scientist, in order to get started on the drawing boards. And there is a common saying, from my lecturer in polytechnic, that the Scientist role is to think of an idea, while the engineer makes the idea work.

The Tertiary education in Singapore has provided many future engineers with skills not just knowledge. These skills have limitless potential and will no doubt spearhead the future economy. In the globalised economy the ability to change will determine its success. This lies entirely in the hands of the engineer's analytical and designing skills, are all too important in meeting these challenges. The engineering course, whom in the past, was described as a dying breed, now begin to see new light as skills are much harder to attain then knowledge itself.

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Saturday, January 17, 2009

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Hi again to all my fellow friends, as many of you have known that before I enter NUS, I was required to undergo a Qualifying English Test, in order to determine whether I need to take an extra English module since I did not take any GP papers earlier on. Apparently, I scored a grade of 4 for the test. Missing the passing grade of 5 by just 1. Yes, it was a score that was so close yet so far. I can't help but lament over my own results.

Nevertheless, I had to live with the consequences of my own actions since there was no turning back. I can't stop complaining to myself why did I missed that grade and knocked myself over the wall over the issue. Truthfully speaking, this module made my time table extremely packed and this was no joke since Universities studies was not easy at the first place. Then again, looking at the bright side of things, this module was not all bad.

It had been a long time since I had a chance to touch English Language again. The last time was during my first year in poly, where i retook my English exam. Yes, I got a D7 for my O levels and I was not very happy with it and thus I took the paper for a second time. It was a wise decision as I received a B3 for my second attempt, which was a much more respectable score than the D7 I got previously. An improvement of over 4 points was a huge margin and it was something that up till now I was proud of. During my secondary school days, I did not take English very seriously in school. Years had passed since I had graduated from secondary school and I began to learn the importance of this language. English can be stated as an international language as now almost the whole world are speaking it, including non-English speaking countries. It is,no doubt, an effective communication tool.

So I can guessed, for my sake, that even though EG1471 weighs for 0 module credits!!! I still had to take the language seriously and besides taking an extra module does not really pull you down with additional burden. It, however, can help to improve your command of the language and take it to further heights.

And pardon my badly written English for the previous blog entries, I wrote that casually for my friends to see. But feel free to comment on it, so I will know the mistakes that I had made.

Thanks.

Saturday, January 17, 2009


Friday, January 16, 2009 -

Well, I think most of you might have known by now that it had been almost 4 months since I last updated this blog. School work was a killer and as a result I had to spend the majority of my time on revision, readings, assignments and tutorials. For those of you who are curious of what I had done for the missing months, I will summarized all of the events together.

October 08

As I could recall, this was the month where I was finalizing my project assignment for EE2006. Its a digital design module, which I must comment, is a pretty fun module to take, where you have the opportunity to design your own digital system. There were several challenges to be met, such as using the least amount of microchip as possible and so on. It was fun as I had to ransacked my brain to think of the appropriate solutions to the problems I encountered. There were limitless ideas to all design and that the main reason why I am so interested in this particular module.

Apart from the 2006 assignment, this was the time to prepare myself for the upcoming exams in November. Its the first exam I will be sitting for after graduating from poly 2 years ago. I must admit, as I had stated in my previous blog entries, that the system in universities is very much different from poly. Life was not easy over here but it still beats being in National Service. After all, I do get to enjoy countless degree of freedom over in NUS then the autocratic structure in the SAF.

November 08

(Exams and Holidays)

It was the exam period and the most stressful period in my first semester. Finally, I will be tested on my concept. The papers were tough and I seriously had a cultural shocked when I did those paper. But despite the difficulties the paper were still manageable. This exam had forced me to change to a new strategy in handling the modules in Universities. The study method that I had formulated in poly is no longer effective. I had to open my mind and forced myself to adopt a new studying method.

After the exams, it was finally the holidays. The time to relax and rest our minds had finally arrived. No doubt the first thing we did was to catch a movie with my universities pal. We then went around town looking for some stuff to buy for Christmas since we were student, our budget was pretty much limited. So we went around looking for the cheapest and good quality product we can find. Most of the time, I was looking for my stuff and had to thanked my pals for accompanying me around.

I also spent some time helping out my club in poly. My juniors needed help in some events they organized and I came to lend an extra hand rather than standing at the side and providing them with moral support. I am extremely proud to see that my club had grown so much over the years. I still could recalled that during my times, the club was just a rag team with very few member clinging on to a common idea. Now the club had grown to almost a hundred members.

The club strength was never about earning CCA points nor the numerous events we did. CCA was all about forging bonds that will last through out our lifetimes. Friendship is the heart of all CCA groups and there is, without a single doubt, that life without friends is always very miserable. Friends will always be there for us whenever we encountered any troubles or porblem in our life and I am proud to make many group friends from my club. Something that is very few in societies nowadays. That is why we should, always treasure our friends.

December 08

Its the festive season, and the result for my first sem in NUS were out. Personally, I thought it was alright but still I believed that I can do much better. I also felt sad that some of my friends never did so well. But nevertheless, we put aside our grievances and look forward to the new semester starting in January.

This month also saw a change in one of my good friends character. I can't imagined why he said those terrible things. Perhaps it is due to the stress that he encountered in his work, but still it does not give him the right to be corrupted by the pressure of society. Worst of all, he did not realized his mistake and insisted that he was correct. He became less sincere in the words so much, that it agitated his friends beside him. I hope, for the sake of our friendship, that he will one day realize his own mistakes before its too late.

Friday, January 16, 2009