Statistics

There are three kinds of lies: lies -- damned lies -- and statistics.

Possible origin:
Leonard H. Courtney, President of the Royal Statistical Society, 1897-1899
Benjamin Disraeli
Henry Du Pré Labouchère
Cornelia Augusta Hewitt Crosse

Lord George Gordon Byron

I was surfing, (the net, of course) when I am bored, as usual. I came across Lord George Gordon Byron's (1788-1824) work. Here are a couple of quotes from Byron which I like or I empathize with.

• The best prophet of the future is the past.


• I slept and dreamt that life was beauty;
  I woke and found that life was duty.


• I shall soon be six-and-twenty.Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?


• But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
  Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
  That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.


• If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one;
  and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

Jazz

How to compose jazz music on your computer:

1. Turn on your iTunes, Real Player, Windows Media Player, Jukebox and any other music player software on your computer.
2. Play different songs on different players, all at once.
3. And you will get jazz music.

--LB on Jazz Music

L'Autunno

Fall is in the air! Continuing from last night's post...
I was quite glad this morning when I got out of my apartment at 5.30 am and found that the temperature outside was low. After I got to my office, I turned on my computer and I felt like Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Here's a snippet of Vivaldi's Four Seasons (1723)...

Concerto in F, R. 293 'Autumn', First Movement: Allegro
By Itzhak Perlman and the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra



The first and only orchestra concert that I went to so far was by a youth strings ensembles from Norway performing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It was a very rare opportunity, given that I was in Kedah. It was a while back, I don't remember when it was, but I remember that I went with my brother. I didn't enjoy it as much back then and I was pretty sure that my brother didn't enjoy it either. A lot had changed since then. The older I get, the more appreciation I have for everything around me. By the way, what do you call this phenomenon? Aging.

Fall Is In the Air!!

I finally got a glimpse of Fall in Lubbock today. I was beginning to wonder whether Lubbock has a season called Fall or not. Today's high was 70F, low is 50F, with some wind and rain (or 'shower' in the meteorology term). Its a nice weather to take a stroll, enjoy the breeze and of course, I didn't miss the opportunity to do so. The rain actually began yesterday, non-stop, and will rain through Tuesday. I was wondering, is the rain weeping for Red Raider losing to Missouri Tiger?

EY was trying to tell me that its snowing in Bozeman Montana. He was trying to be a little mysterious and sophisticated, he asked me: "Why does the snow always fall from the sky?" Guess how did I answer him? "I wondered the same thing too. Why do the rain fall from the sky to the ground? Why not from east to west, north to south, or even southeast to northwest?"

Not-So-Wonderland, Not Mine Though

I am up for some pranks* today for some unknown reasons. Maybe its because I still didn't get my stuff, maybe its the lack of sleep, maybe ...... but anyway, who cares?

*cf. My Wonderland

All I know is I have some arse to kick pretty soon.
(EC: Run Forrest, RUN! )

This is a picture from EC's blog. Its a good picture, well photographed and everything. The only thing I don't quite get is what was the landscape designer or whoever it was that planned this park thinking. Why do you need a fire hydrant (or fire hose) right underneath the tree? Just in case the tree caught on fire? Well, that's a real waste of resources. Anyway, good picture, kudos to whoever that took the picture.

Spiders....Cob Web

I was cleaning the cobweb in my apartment last night because they were beyond my tolerance limit. There were a lot of them, I mean, really A LOT, though it was not very visible to the eyes. When I was removing the cob web, I didn't see any insects that were caught on the web. And I was thinking, "Darn you, spiders, can't you clean up your mess after your meals?" Then I realized, we, human being rarely clean up our own mess (other than mess in our private property), why should I expect spiders to clean up their own mess.

Schubert: Moment Musical No. 3 in F minor, Op 94

I was browsing youtube (as usual, when I'm bored) and came across a clip of Horowitz playing Schubert Moment Musical No 3 in F-. This is one of my favourite pieces that I happen to know how to play the whole piece (yes, this is very unusual, for I am the worst among those who actually learn how to play piano).

I came across Horowitz clips on youtube during the weekend and shared it with JJ, another piano aficionado. Looking at Horowitz's fingers and the way he played the piano, JJ was telling me that she wished to be the piano.

Horowitz version is actually slower but his interpretation is very different. I had another rendition by Philippe Entremont, which is a little faster, and little 'intimidating' to me. I wished that my piano teacher had show me all the different rendition before I learn to play it.

Here's Horowitz's rendition



And here's Philippe Entremont rendition

五年

光陰似箭, 一轉眼就五年了.
這五年里, 究竟有什麼改變, 有什麼還是不變呢?

改變的是: 父母比較懂得享受人生了; 妹妹修到兩個學位了; 我從沒有學位到追求最高的學位; 小瓜來美國了.

不變的是: 事實; 那一股怎麼也驅不走的哀傷和愁緒; 我還是個寄生蟲; 小瓜還是這麼不上進這麼懶...

Muppet Show with Harry Belafonte

I was bored and began to surf the web. Recently, I like to visit youtube.com and search for muppet show clips. My all time favorite is the mahna manha clip and beaker singing feeling. These two clips always lift me up when I need a little laugh. Today I found another one with Harry Belafonte and Fozzie Bear singing the Banana Boat Song. It really cracked me up, badly.

Enjoy it!

小瓜加油!

I am SO impressed! You figured out the excel trend line thingy all by yourself! That's a great leap from what you were just a couple months ago, where you would have called up your two poor sisters for help. Keep it up!

Pride & Prejudice Soundtrack

Of all the movies I watched recently, the soundtrack that I really want were actually soundtrack from movies I watched before the summer semester. I bought one of them last night, the Pride & Prejudice (2005) Soundtrack. The track that I particularly want is actually the end credit. For some reason, after so many months since I watched the movie, the end credit track was still lingering in my mind.

Here it is. Enjoy!

Pride & Prejudice OST: Credit



Once I got the other soundtrack (i.e. when I could afford another CD), I will post my favorite track here. Be patient.

Intelligent Studio

Still waiting for feedback from my boss and waiting for my late lunch, I decided to do something with my blog. I didn't really 'take care' of my blog since I set it up in April. Didn't feel like doing something with it. I spent quite a lot of time and effort to make my previous blog the way I wanted it to be, but then some jerk who is after one of my friend kept 'stalking' my blog to get information about my friend, which was very sick. And of course, my friend didn't like it after we found out. So I had to abandon the old blog out of respect for my friend.

I was surfing on the internet and came across a random blog name generator. Seems like random *something* generator is the cult now, I saw a couple of them on web before this. I am pretty familiar with the random number generator for I had been using it for quite some time and actually know one code which no one had figured out the period, yet. But then when I see the random blog name generator, it still sounds interesting to me.

The first name I generated was "Intelligent Studio". It sort of clicked in my mind. For the past few semesters, whenever I have a project which required a pseudo company name, whether a group or individual project, I always used "Intelligent Solutions". The good thing is, when you put the "I" and "S" together, you can make it into a dollar "$" sign, which is cool. So, I decided to change my blog name to "Intelligent Studio". I don't know how long I am going to stick with this name, but for the time being, so be it......

To add to the list of movies from previous post, I watched "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The King and I" and "Bride and Prejudice". I checked out "The Muppet Show", Sinatra's "Manchurian Candidate" and "The Story of the Weeping Camel" from the public library today. I should probably compile a list of movies that I watched within the month of August. See how far I could get.

The worst thing that could happen to me is, I know I have a lot to do, but I can't motivate myself to do it.....and the worst thing is happening to me....NOW......

What a week.....

A whole week, did nothing but watched bunch of moviessss.....

Nacho Libre and The Devil Wears Prada in theatre
Casablanca....Here's looking at you, kid....Play it, Sam.....
White Fang
Citizen Kane.....Rosebud....
V for Vendetta - I learnt many words beginning with "V" other than "validation" and "verification"
Il Monstro (Italian Comedy)
King Kong - the "LB's cut (1 hr ++) with NW's commentary/sound effect and PA falling asleep" version
Shaggy Dog
The Usual Suspects....Keyser Söze...Conclusion: Bryan Singer - good director and BAD writer (cf. Superman Returns)
Schindler's List
nearly a season of the Muppet Show
a couple episodes of Poirot,
a couple episodesof Looney Tunes

What a super productive weekend, didn't do my laundry as I planned, didn't revised my paper as I should have done......

I was planning to watch Gone With The Wind (238 minutes movie) too, but it was too late and have to get up early today. I need to get back on my regular semester 'clock' now since the classes begin next week. So long, my summer!

And now, I have Muppet shows screensaver, Kermit the Frog as my MSN display picture and my desktop picture......

無題

I planned to write up a section for my dissertation today. I bundled up all the articles I will need and left it beside my bag last night, so that I will remember to bring them along with me. But voilà, I still managed to forget! Now I am stucked in my office, trying to find something to do until its time to go home.

一直以來, 都以為自己目前所做的事情, 已經到了自己的極限, 所以就不曾積極地想辦法去改善目前的狀況, 只想隨隨便便地, 儘快把這燙手芋扔了, 好去做其他的事情. 幾個星期前, 無意間發現, 這還不是我的極限, 我還有能力追求更遠大的目標. 這個發現改變了許多東西, 幾天前覺得不可能的事, 現在看來卻已經不是一回事了. 人, 還是不要知道自己的極限, 才能積極地去追求更高的成就, 更遠大的理想.

New Door Sign

The door sign for my office is way outdated, the name of people who graduated n years ago was still on the sign. Yesterday afternoon, Dr JS came to look for someone and on his way out, he made some comment on the sign, and saying that he was looking for someone, who already graduated.

Dr JS is another professor with a very dry sense of humor. The last time he dropped by our office, he saw the "Mechanics of Material" textbook on the floor, which happened to be our door stopper. He commented "That's the best use of mechanics of material textbook that I had ever seen".

So I decided to change the door sign for our office. This is what we have now.



For this posted version, I edited the picture a little so that the name won't show.

Science: It's a Girl Thing

Now that its over, something called 'relieve' is flooding me. I had a hectic weekend, trying to put things together for a short, 2 hour 15 minutes class. I thought that this ought to be easy, to talk about Industrial Engineering (IE) and what IE do, since I had been in this field for more than 6 years now. However, when I really got to work, its not as easy as I thought.

'Science: It's a Girl Thing' is a 3-day camp that Texas Tech organized every summer, for a couple years now, to introduce science to young girls. The participants age ranged from 8 - 17 years old, and of course, all girls. This is the first time College of Engineering is taking part, so benchmarking is impossible. I was the TA for the Industrial Engineering session. The professor in charge for IE was busy for that weekend because she had a grant proposal due today. So I had to prepare the short 20 minutes lecture and learn the "Push vs. Pull" game in order to facilitate it during the session.

My real problem was preparing the lecture. We have 14-year-old girls (because COE requested for it), who do not really know what is science. Imagine that you need to tell them, engineering is the "application of science and math for the better of mankind". And the worst part of all, Industrial Engineering is pretty abstract comparing to other engineering, (else, why do other engineers call us Imagineers?) there is nothing solid that we could actually SHOW it to them.

I had to avoid using all those IE terms such as operation research, production system, ergo, engineering management, time study etc cause I am pretty sure that I will lose them if I use any of those term. At last, I resolved to talk about IE by relating everything to their daily life. Instead of saying time study, I told to time themselves every morning, and tell them to eliminate things that are unnecessary and time themselves again.

I showed 2 short clips from the movie "Cheaper by the Dozen" made in 1950, where Frank Gilbreth showed his children school teacher how to take a "Scientific Bath" and also "best way to button his vest". I used a lot of pictures in my power point presentation too, since I learnt that kids nowadays are more visual than we used to be. (I am beginning to feel really OLD now) As it turned out, the presentation was OK, I got quite some laugh from my audience and I actually get connected with them in some way. They began to realize that IE is actually fun, because you can be lazy and yet get things done.

After the short lecture and the game, we gave the students a little lab tour. I am really thankful to the Ergo friends. They set up the motion study equipment and allowed all the students to experience with the machine. They had a good time playing with the motion study equipment.

We made a personalized key chain, with the double T on one side, and "College of Engineering, Industrial" and the student's name on the other side as a souvenior for the students. We used the rapid prototyping machine to do it. Drawing the parts was easy, it didn't take too much of my time. The real problem is the time it took to make it. One key chain took 45 minutes, and I need to make 7 of them. It took my whole Monday to do it. But, the students loved it, so I think its worth my time then. At least they will remember what is IE.

Long Live Sparrow!!

I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest this afternoon with NW and PA. NW and I were very excited about the movie, we were longing to watch this one and in fact, we bought the ticket a day before. The problem is, we were caught up with something in the office and got to the theater 10 minutes before the show. We can't find a decent seat and we sat on the second row from the front. It wasn't that fun to watch movie that close to the screen, with the neck pain and eye strain etc afterward.

Anyway, it is a great movie. Great acting, great CGI, great characters and good story line too. The only thing is since this is the second movie in the trilogy, the ending of the movie seems a little loose, yet, I can't wait to see the third one now.

The scene where Captain Sparrow first appear on screen was hilarious. Its even funnier than the first movie. The other funny one is Elizabeth Swann went "Captain....Captain Jack Sparrow" to Lord Cutler Beckett (some bad guy in this second one), exactly what Sparrow said in the first movie when he was about the be hanged. My favourite is Pintel and Ragetti, where this time around, they are helping the good guy.

The score for this movie is excellent, haunting at times, hilarious at times, especially when classical music were used in one very unlikely scene. The score actually tie the two movies together, you can hear some resemblence to the first one, yet there are some new elements.

NW and I speculated that the voodoo lady in this second movie is actually a bad one, because of some thing that she owned in her little hut, which resembles something that Davy Jones own. Well, its just our speculation.

Something to look forward to next year, since the third and final one won't be in the theatre till next year. And, Yes! Captain Barbosa is back too! And an academy award for Johnny Depp!! (it won't happen anyway, cause this is a comedy)

Managing the Unexpected

Managing the Unexpected?
Expecting the Unmanageable?

I am taking a summer class in Risk Assessment and Management. Or something like that, I don't quite remember the name of the course. One of the course requirements is a book report. I chose a book by Dr. Karl Weick, whom I read quite a bit in another management seminar and I kind of know what to expect from his book. Yes, it has something to do with organization culture, okay?

The title of the book is "Managing the Unexpected", where Weick and his co-author Sutcliffe, suggested normal organizations to benchmark high reliability organizations (HRO) on managing the unexpected events. Its a pretty interesting book and the method they used is similar to the "Harvard Case Study" style, where they laid out quite a number of organizations experiences, analyzed, compared and contrasted these incidents.

However, the real "take" I got from this book is not really from the two excellent researchers-cum-authors. It happened this morning in my risk class. My professor, for some reason, referred to the HRO in his lecture, and naturally, he asked who got the book. So I didn't have much choice but to speak up. After my brief oral report on the book, he said this:

I liked this book, but as a department chair, I would like it better if the author could change the name to "Expecting the Unmanageable"

That made my day.

無常

今天閑着沒事做, 沒什麼心情看書, 又還不想回家, 因為家里很熱, 就決定要整理我所有的 email account, 刪除所有不需要了的 email. 翻着看着, 我翻到两封 email, 同一個朋友發的, 分別是今年二月和三月收到的. 一封算是報平安的, 另一封則附有相片. 相里的她, 挺着肚子, 高興地顯示着肚里的雙胞胎.

今天看到這两封 email 時, 真的是感慨萬千. 雖然意外發生距今兩個多月了, 我卻覺得彷彿是昨天剛發生似的; 前一秒還高高興興地期待着, 下一秒就什麼都沒有了.

世事無常, 凡事只要以平常心去看待, 就不會那麼感慨了. 可是, 平常心, 談何容易啊!

Infinity

"Is there any number larger than infinity?"
"errr.....no.....I don't think so..."
"What about infinity times two? Infinity square?"

My risk analysis course professor. I was cracking up in class when he said so. But only another of my coursemate got the joke. The rest of the class were flabbergasted, staring at him, not knowing how to response.

今日... 明日...

今日歌　　　　　　　　明　文嘉
今日復今日 今日何其少
今日又不為 此事何時了
人生百年幾今日 今日不為真可惜
若言姑待明朝至 明朝又有明朝事
為君聊賦今日詩 努力請從今日始

明日歌　　　　　　　　明　文嘉
明日復明日 明日何其多
日日待明日 萬事成蹉跎
世人苦被明日累 明日無窮老將至
晨昏滾滾水東流 今苦悠悠日西墮
百年明日能幾何？ 請君聽我明日歌

新的舊 Blog, 還是舊的新 Blog?

之前有過一個 blog, 可是因為某些原因, 而決定"遺棄"那個 blog.

現在的問題, 就是, 這個算是新的 blog 嗎? 還是舊的? 是"新"的舊 Blog? 是"舊"的新 Blog?