How ten-pin bowling alley works?

I have been to a bowling sports center this morning, located somewhere in JB. After watching for almost an hour of game plays, the thought of how-on-earth does the whole automatic bowling system work? Right from score calculations, to the return of such heavy-balls and most importantly, the collection and rearrangement of all fallen pins. 

Bearing that thought in mind, I searched over the internet for answers right away after getting home. Below are 2 videos which I personally feel do answer my curiosity. 

Video 1 (Source: YouTube)

Video 2 (Source: YouTube)

After watching these videos, I bet next time when you go for any bowling game, you will appreciate how the great mechanical system working behind the scene. 

Self-'Centerism'

The word 'Self-Centerism' just flashed through my minds. Do not bother to look it up in dictionary, because it does not truly exist. I use the phrase 'self-centerism' to describe the human behavior where selfishness has overpowered all other merits.

Very often, we tend to think from our very individual point of views. Needless to say, focused on our own benefits as the main priority at the center. A very good example of myself which I have just realized recently. I often reprimanded a good friend of mine whenever he tends to be concentrating on his work while I am talking to him. I would tell him that this is very impolite. However, I always react the same when someone is talking to me while I am with my work. I never realized that I, too have behaved as what I reprimanded my friend for doing the same fault.

Dear friends, it is extremely easy for us to pin-point 100 mistakes of other people without much effort. But we often failed to notice the 1000 demerits of ourselves until it's too late. So let us be humble, and take some times to examine our own faults before pointing our fingers to people around us. Everyone should play their part in making places around us a better home, before we hope other people to contribute to that.

What is your say?

Experience VS Qualification

I bet this has been a long debated-issue over these years, whether we like it or not. The major change in working environment which threatens experienced-but-less educated employees started in SEA countries back in the late 80s or early 90s. Then is the time when graduates from many overseas universities came back to work in their origin countries. Unless the existing experienced workers go for some sort of upgrading courses, they were forced to resign or to be 'under the new bird'. And very often, the graduates are very arrogant in nature.

But to me, I really agree that education is merely just a piece of paper. Taking for a very simple example. An engineering educated computer science engineer is surely expected to be very capable in the field of computer knowledge. But how about his other soft skills? Will his engineering qualification leading him to solve emergency problems? Will he be knowing what to react should he faced problems not directly related to his area of expertise? I bet he will be at loss. This is where experiences are most needed.

Qualifications are just like 'handbook'. Students nowadays are expecting to work as a robot, every task is expected to be routine. When something broke from the routine chain, we often become hopeless. We have no experience to diagnose the problems, and fixing it back. Paper qualification does not teach us how to live. How to manage our own-self. How should we control our temper, our EQ or our lust. We are expected not to stop learning. Learning not only for exams, but learn from our daily lives. Learn from our mistakes. Learn from other people's stories around us.

So my point of view is that:
1. For educated youngsters, do not be arrogant. Spend our time in listening to the piece of advices (although often very long-winded or sometimes even over-confident) from the experienced elder co-workers or mentors. Chinese proverbs often quoted 'They eat more salt than we eat rice'.
2. For the elder mentors, teach us whatever you feel we would be needing in future. We appreciate that real lot.

Time travel

Time travel - it sounds good, isn't it? I guess it would be everyone's dream to travel through times. We can travel to future in order to fulfill our anxiety regarding our going-to-be. To know how our universe ends could be full of exploration adventure. Or we could go back to rewrite history. We could have our regrets altered. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Is it a science fantasy , or could it be really working?

Many great scientists and mathematicians, including Professor Einstein and Stephen Hawking had foreseen the possibility of traveling through times. Professor Hawking did a simple, yet meaningful experiment in testing the theory regarding traveling back to earlier time. He created an invitation for human-being living in the far future to attend a party in the present year (with the exact date, time and venue) written on the invitation card. If time travel works, he would have successfully meet those time travelers from far future attending his party. The clock strikes the exact time the party to be started, but no one turn up. The conclusion is, traveling back through times is mostly impossible.

Before we try to understand why doesn't it work, we have to know how it is supposed to be working first. One of the most popular theory regarding time traveling is through 'wormholes'. Wormholes are extremely tiny, or super microscopic voids that exist in sub-atomic particle. Even if technology evolves in future enabling us to enlarge these microscopic wormholes for objects to enter, it might still not be working. 'Paradox', most likely will occur. Professor Hawking suggested that the resonance and infinity looping of particles traveling between the two-time-worlds across the wormholes will cause it to explode or collapse long before we could even see it forming. A good example will be the sharp-annoying noise from loud speakers when interfere by microphones.

However the good news is, time travel into future is POSSIBLE. Time is not an absolute matter. It is deviated when passing through very dense object. The densest object in the universe? Black holes. If we could fly around black holes without being sucked in into the 'everlasting trap', we could slow our time when flying through it. When you fly long enough, say 10 days around the black hole and return to earth, years could have passed on earth. This, is a one way ticket. You can't go back to earlier time. As black holes are very difficult to locate, and it is almost impossible to be closer enough to black holes without being sucked in, the second solution is travel at very high speed - at speed closer to speed of light. Traveling at light speed, or close to the speed of light could slow our time too.

If one day, the time machine is available, where and when would you love to go and have a look?

Does true friend exist?

Very often we might hear people saying that it is a very fortunate thing if you can ever get ONE best friend in your lifetime. How far do you agree with it?

I remembered having a lots of good friends when I was a small kid. I begin to realize that my friends are getting lesser as I grew up. It becomes even clearer reaching the age of 20+. Unless when I was needed, I have almost nil friend to be with. Does the problem lies with me? Saying I am not a very socialize person? A very boring person? I don't know.

Throughout the years, I did make one or two good friends in each season. However, the friendship will always end when we reached the closest relationship (just one step close to being best friend) for some funny reasons. My 1st good friend quarrel with me because of toilet-sharing issue when we lived together in University days. We are paying for the same rate of room rental, he locked the toilet almost every morning inside his room. The war began when I sounded him. My 2nd good friend left me because the girl he liked rejected him using me as a fake excuse. Believing her, he blamed me.

Since then, I didn't make any more good friends.

DO NOT let anyone just simply plug in their USB devices to your laptop

I have just read an article regarding the latest threat posed by USB devices to our laptops, PCs or even mobile phones. The researchers had found out that a type of hacking program (or malware) may now become undetectable through USB connectors attached to the PCs. The reason for the invisible is that very often this type of malware operates as normal USB hardware (such as mouse, keyboard or joystick attached to PCs) which is almost passable to most antivirus software.

So, the only prevention method is NEVER ever let any stranger just simply plug in any of their USB devices into your prestigious PCs.

More information is available at here (This is also the original website from where I read of the article).
It does no harm in spending some time reading over it

Chinese New Year 2011

The clock has struck 12.00am marking the over of year 2010 in Chinese Calendar. I am spending the new year with my Mum in JB this year, rather than going back to hometown. So my Dad and younger brother will be in Sibu celebrating the new year with relatives. The reason? Mainly due to very costly air tickets.

Since I was a small kid, I enjoy the new year preparation days. The feeling is great because of the strong sense of family bond and kinship. The busy days throughout the whole year with each other dazzling through our own activities every day, it is only during the new year we get to do things together; cleaning house, baking cake, buying cookies, etc. Doing all these stuffs as a family make us feel blessed.

Watching the fireworks from my 3rd-storey living place last night, I am thinking of my home, my home-sweet-home in Sibu. I was thinking, if I am not doing my PhD currently in JB, but instead I am working in my hometown, how would that be? Or if I have become a successful breadwinner in JB and have my family from Sibu move out here and living with us, wouldn't that be marvelous?

In life, we often can make decision one at a time. It reminds me of an English poem named 'The Road Not Taken'. It describes best about the alternate road that we are unable to take when we have chosen to walk through the preferred one.

How far do you agree with it?

Science education - How much of the theory is true enough?

In science class, we were taught that atom is the smallest particle available in the universe. Everything around us is made up from combinations of these atoms.Earth studies told us that our living continents are moving slowly around the Earth's crust like floated platforms moving on water. The constant friction between the giant plates creates earthquakes. What if, one day we found out that the contemporary teachings and theories were not complete enough? That means everything we have learnt and known need to be redefined. 

It was recently found by scientists that the atom is able to be divided into smaller components, which they named as sub-atom. This sub-atomic theory was then realized to be able to describe the birth of universe. Although this theory contradicts the well-known theory of general relativity by Einstein, both theories describe our universe fitly in their own respective way. 

I have read of some articles saying that our Earth is actually growing and expanding throughout these years since its birth. The expansion of Earth's diameter has caused the continents that we are living in to crack and become sub-divided into several smaller tectonic plates. If this theory happened to be true, it means that the tectonic studies and plate movement mechanism used for earthquake studies need to be redefined.

I slowly become aware that nothing is perfect as I grow up. In fact, things become even clearer when I entered the world of industry. Most theories, or products were being commercialized even before they are fully tested. Most system providers will tend to do R&D of their product alongside the implementation. 

Therefore, we are living in a contemporary world - that the world is everyday improving and changing. What we know today might become wrong the next day.