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Minggu, 26 Juni 2016

SG50 The Fighter Jets Fly By ECP Expressway

Date:  Aug 9, 2015

While we driving home.  It was 12 noon when we on the ECP Expressway.

There is a fighter jet flying in the sky.

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So, we hazard light our car, and investigate.

Kay: “Is Singapore under attack?"

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Where have they fly to?  Where is it?

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Here it comes again.  Four fighter jets doing the twisted moves.

Here comes Larry Leong.  Our friend who is going to drive across 15 countries form Singapore to London in 66 days in his Land Rovers, with his wife Simone, and their daughter Lucy.  I think Lucy is only 5 years old.  And the plan is, 50 years later, hopefully Lucy will do another long Land Rover trip to celebrate SG100.

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What do you know?  The four fighter jets came to see them off too.

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A convoy of 52 Land Rovers will escort Larry’s car to Tuas check point where he will joined with other Malaysia drivers, about 15 of them to embark this wonderful journey.

The sky is not that good.  But good enough for us to see the LOVE shape the fighter jets make.

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The kids really love it.  They don’t like the sun though.

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Let’s do selfie.  or Wefie.

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Happy Birthday Singapore.  In front of us.

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Happy SG50.  Behind us.

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Kamis, 02 Juni 2016

Dont Play iPad Lah! Play Sushi Go!

Date:  Mar 30, 2015

At home, I have all kinds of board games or card games.

Don’t play iPad lah!

Playing iPad sometimes destroy their eye sight.

Playing iPad makes them become isolated or unfriendly.

Let your kids play board games.  Start training them to play.

Let them grew up playing card games or board games.

There are many board game out there.

This is one of them.  I found it quite cool.

It’s fun!

Sushi Go!

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There are 108 cards in there.  

Shuffle them well.

And setup the game as follow.  

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For example, I am playing a 3 players game.  So, each one get 9 cards.

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Every player look at their own deck of cards and choose 1 card and place the card face down.

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All players then open the cards at the same time.

The bottom player chosen a Tempura Card.  At the end of the round, you got to have 2x Tempura cards in order to score 5 points.  If you only end up with 1x Tempura card, you score nothing.

The right player chosen a Dumpling cards.  He will try to collect more dumpling cards, the more dumpling cards he has, the more he scores.  1 dumpling worth 1 point, 2x dumplings worth 3 points, 3x dumplings worth 6 points, if you get 4x dumpling you will have 10 points, and lastly, if you have fun dumpling cards, you score 15 points.

The top player played a “Chop Stick Card”.  Later I explained why.

This is end of first turn in first round.

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Next turn, every one pass his own deck of cards to the player on your left.

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And every one choose 1x card from the new deck (passed over from the player on the right), and place the card face down.

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For the person (Top Player) who has the “Chopstick” card just now, before every one open the 2nd card, he can yell “Sushi Go!”.  This is when he find very good cards in his present deck.  And wish to play two cards at the same time.  After he scream “Sushi Go!” he take the 2nd card out and face down.

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And he plays the Salmon Nigiri card together with the Wasabi card.  So, he score a total 6 points as the Wasabi multiple 3 times the Salmon Nigiri value.

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After he opened the two face down cards, he put the “Chopstick” card back to his own deck.

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Face down.  (Chopstick card).  This deck of card later will be pass to the left hand side player.  So the left hand side player will have a Chopstick card to play later.

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Let’s check out the 2nd turn.  Bottom player has 2x Tempura, so, he will collect 5 points.

The right hand side player has two dumplings.  So, he will have 3 points now.

The top player played a Salmon Nigiri on top of the Wasabi cards which multiply 3 times to the value of Salmon Nigiri value.  So, a total of 6 points.

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Continue to 3rd turn, you pass the cards to the left hand side player.  All the decks are swap to the left hand player.

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You continue to play the cards each turn until you finish all the cards.  That is when you take a paper to calculate points.

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Bottom Player’s Cards Scores:

The single Tempura score nothing as it is not a pair.

The pair of Tempura cards will score 5 points.

The single Sashimi card score nothing as it is not a set of 3x cards.

He collected 4x sushi cards.  He has the most.  So, he score 6 points.  Now if there is any one also have the same and most cards, then, the 6 points will divided by 2.  If all three players scores the same number of sushi cards and all have the most cards, then, it will be divided by 3 and ignore the remaining.

He has an Egg Nigiri card, which score 1 point.

So, in this round, the bottom player score a total of 5 + 6 + 1 = 12 points.

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Top Player’s Card Scores:

Chopstick card score no points.

The Salmon + Wasabi pair give 2 x 3 = 6 points.

The Egg Nigiri is 1 point.

The Sushi card, he has 1x.  And that is the 2nd most card, so, he scores 3 points here.  As the third player did not play any sushi card at all.

So, in this round, top player scores 6 + 1 + 3 = 10 points.

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Now, let’s look at the Right Player’s scores.

He has only 2x Sashimi cards where he requires 3.  So, he score zero points.

He has pudding 3 cards.  He has the most.  So, he score 6 points.  Take note, if at the end of the round, the least pudding player will take -6 points off their points.  So, you must make sure you do not compete the pudding.  As the loser will suffer.

The Salmon + Wasabi earns him 2 x 3 = 6 points.

He has another pair of Salmon + Wasabi which earns another 6 points.

In total, the right player has 6 + 6 + 6 = 18 points.

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So, you continue play three rounds and then calculate and add up all the points.  

Remember, the pudding is kept until the last.  

Here is the quick game summary and their scores of the different cards.

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This game is easy to play.

It is suitable for 6+ and above.

Each game takes about 10-20 minutes.

It is fast pace game.

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It is a strategy game.

You get to see all the possible cards after 3 turns in a round.

However you know it has the cards in somebody deck, but it does not mean that they do not play them.

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Like what we see above, some player trying to collect the Sashimi cards.  But you really need 3x cards to score 10 points or nothing.

So, you have to be wise to make the decision to keep playing Sashimi cards.

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Actually, do you remember the Sushi place that revolving belt?  This game is like that.  The deck of unplayed cards keep moving one direction to the left.

Each time, you pick what you want and pass your deck of cards to the left side player.

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It is also interesting that you need to eat dessert - Pudding after all three rounds.

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Of course you can have different ways of playing.  Create your own.

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And the game is easy and fun.  Even Kay Kay loves to play.

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I recommend this game.

I bought it from Amazon.

RIP Molly

Date:  July 27, 2015

I was going to toilet the other day in the morning.  

And I saw the most terrifying things.

A cockroach.

A huge cockroach is moving inside my toilet.

And it suddenly struck me!

By the way, Molly passed away last Sunday (July 19).

For those who does not know, Molly is a pure breed ragdoll from Australia.

And she has been with us for 14 years.

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This is what he looks like 14 years ago.

Molly

A fun, little cat.  

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This was shot on July 19, 2001.  When we first got the cat across the street from a pet shop in Holland Village.

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My home does not have cockroach problem for so many years.  The two cats has done a great job to make cockroach and lizards stay away from our home.

Mel Mel (a local Tonkinese cat) passed away 3 years ago.  And now, Molly follow him. 

Sometimes, they also play with the Ants.  (Sorry Antman!)  She actually squashed the ants on the floor.  

Very fun cat.  

So, after she has gone.

Last Tuesday, I saw a cockroach.

Last Saturday, the ants storms my sweet mangosteen.

And yesterday, an ugly lizard jumped onto our dining table.  

So, I think we need some help.  We need the cat power again to help us keep all these bad cockroach, lizards away.

At the mean time… R.I.P. Molly.  We will miss you. 

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Senin, 18 April 2016

Apple Watch Vs Pebble Time

Date:  June 26, 2015

I am so sorry Pebble Time!

Really really sorry!

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At first, I thought the long battery life of Pebble Time will make me wear it.

It is a Kickstarter project.  It was a very ambitious project.

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It has the ability to change clock watch face.  It sounds so good.

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But the realistic fact are:

1) It is always dim like this.  It is like wanted to show you something, but you know it is there, but you can see it clearly.  So, overtime, what you do is to press a button to light it up.

That is very bad design.

The Color E-Ink does give you the color, but still it needed to be in power safe mode.  Unlink Apple Watch, the give you blank screen.  And when you need to see it, flip your wrist a little.  And the full screen comes up.

1-0 winners goes to Apple.

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2) Look at the packaging.

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Wow.  That’s it.  Come on, you are a watch.  Please come in with better or nicer package.  You give a good box, at least people will keep the watch safe in the box.  But it is a delivery box, which is a also a watch box, that cannot be locked or covered properly.

2-0 apple Watch win the packaging.

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3.  No Chinese?

Wow.  That is the first.

It suppose to be a smart watch.

There are way that you can change the language into Chinese.  But that means the whole OS is Chinese.

When SMS or WhatsApp arrived, it is a standard Chinese characters.  Why you can’t display them?  Strange?

3-0 Apple wins again.

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4.  And the Interface is Button driven.

So, press the middle button to bring up the Apps menu.  Press up button to go up, press down button to go down, press the middle button to confirm.  

Wow… It actually sucks.  I did not expect this.

Also, there is no touch screen.

No Siri to talk to too!

4-0 Apple wins again.

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OK.  To be fair for Pebble Time, they win the battery long life game as well as the price.  So 4-2 Apple win.

I think the biggest mistake is, my Apple Watch come in delivered way before the Pebble Time watch arrived.  So, it could be different if I see Pebble Watch first and might gave a very fair comment about it.  But then, this is fate, my Apple Watch comes right before the Pebble Watch.  And the Apple Watch has been on my wrist for almost 3 weeks.  And I am still wearing it without fail.  Where is my Fitbit Charge HR?  Well, sitting there doing nothing.  HaHaHaHa

The color of the screen, the ease of use of the interface, the notifications delivered in a way which is non intrusive to me (my opinion).  I get to see my phone lesser.  But Apple Watch is still a great product compare to the Pebble Time watch.  No doubt about it.

Sorry!  Pebble Time!

 

Minggu, 10 April 2016

Aquaponics Autotrophs vs Heterotrophs

The Big Picture

All energy for living organisms is ultimately derived from the sun.  Autotrophs using the suns energy create organic molecules through photosynthesis (Calvin Cycle), and do not require exogenous (external) organic compounds.  Our fish food is made by autotrophs...and the produce from our gardens is made by autotrophs.  Heterotrophs derive energy by breaking down organic molecules made by plants (Krebs Cycle).  Humans, our fish, and the bacteria in our systems are heterotrophs...(sadly) we cant use the suns energy and atomospheric gases to generate organic compounds.

Autotrophs

Autotrophs produce macromolecules in the following way:
Specialized plant cells use glucose as energy to convert minerals and other atoms into cellulose, sugars, starches, organic acids, antioxidants, medicines, and plant fats & proteins. Cellulose, sugar, and starches are actually polymers of one chemical....glucose...only chained together differently.  Although any AP system should have basline levels of certain minerals, the types of plants will determine frequency of supplementation.  For example, systems that produce spinach will require more frequent additions of supplemental chelated (Kee-lay-ted) iron.

Mineral supplementation is a hotly debated issue, with some asserting "as needed/symptomatic" dosing, "scheduled" dosing, pre-made commercial mixes, mineral+commercial base dosing, vermicompost "tea", using hydroponics concepts, NOT using hydroponics concepts....Im confident that there is no one method that is perfect.  However, if certain practices provide results Im sure it would be beneficial to learn from the failings/successes of others.  Entire books could be/have been written on this subject.  As I learn more I will add posts regarding mineral supplementation.

Atoms plants need to build macromolecules (protein, fat, carbs) are necessary.  Cellulose = fiber...made from glucose but we cant digest it.  Sugars and starches = digestable forms of glucose.  See the formula above, thats all you need to make it.  Fats contain the same atoms as sugars:  oxygen, carbon, hydrogen.  Nothing extra needs to be added for formation of fats.  Proteins contain the same atoms as glucose, but ALSO need nitrogen and sometimes sulfur (miniscule amounts).  Nitrogen will come from your nitrates, and sulfur can be added directly to the system or via fish food.

Another autotroph (but NOT a plant) evident in your system is algae.  A general rule is that if its green, it uses chlorophyll, and is an autotroph.  Just like grass, if you remove light, it will die/subside.  If  you have alge in your growbed, add more growth media, shorten your stand pipe, or fill you tank under the growth media.  Most fish will eat aglae, so growth in the FT is desireable.  Also, snails eat algae...and fish eat snails, so its a double whammy.  If youre using clear tubing and algae is clogging the tubes, cover it with foam tubing insulation, spray paint tubing, or replace with rigid PVC.

Heterotrophs

Heterotrophs require organic molecules from other animals to power their cells and synthesize their biomass. 

Bacteria. Oddly enough, the bacteria of interest in our AP systems are also heterotrophic. The difference is, rather than consuming the biomass of other lifeforms they consume the waste products of other lifeforms. Of primary concern is fish piss (or ours, for that fact). Primary contents of piss are water and urea, among other electrolytes. Healthy urine is sterile, and is necessary for nitration to occur.

Here is a graphic illustrating how you, me, the worms, and the fish process the products of autotrophs to make ATP, which powers our specialized cells to synthesize muscle, nerve, guts, and/or bone.


Worms.  The next tier of animal complexity is the red worm.  This guy is a major contributor to the system in that he breaks down organic solids, such as insoluble fish waste and vegetation, into soluble matter that the plants can readily absorb. Its important to pay particular attention to these guys because they will actually decrease your need to add much commercial nutrient and supplementation.  In grow beds, they are placed direcly into the growth media, along with vegetation and compost from the kitchen.  Another way of using worms is through vermicomposting.  However, composting requires a higher degree of nutrient, moisture, and temperature control to be optimally effective.

Fish.  The fish are, by far, the most complex heterotrophs in the system. Without the fish, you would have to pour chemicals or piss and crap into the system to get it to work, which is pretty unhealthy for vegetation consumption.  Remember all of the spinach/e. coli recalls in the news? All are the result of using the manure of warm-blooded animals...which is avoided using fish manure.  In an AP system, these animals require oxygenated water, water filtration, fish food, pH control, and temperature control.  Beyond this, they dont require much, and a well-designed system can correct for the almost all of these factors:
- Venturi aeration solves oxygnation.
- Grow beds solve water filtration.
- Inulated tanks and environmental controls solve temperature control.
- Commercial base solves pH.
- Commerical fish pellets solve fish food.

Stay tuned. More to follow.
 

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