Rowie's Scribbles

Hey all...Its seems like nearly a month since I've updated my blog with interesting stuff...I truly apologize: I've been having debate training every day now, in preparation for the Royal Intervarsity Debate on the 28th Nov...While this has certainly opened my eyes to various issues (football included har har) & has spawned ideas for so many articles, I'm simply too exhausted to write 'em up. Rowie is sorry... This & the disappointing lack of drive (in me) to read up & present good articles has caused this (temporary, I assure you) stagnancy in my blogging activity. Not to worry, I promise that once I've got a clear head & the time for it (I damn well should), I'll bring good articles to the floor. N'er fear! Cheers & until next time, take care!

The holidays are here, so I thought to spend time learning new music & recording them hehe :p Here's the first 3 recordings: Fa Ru Xue - by Jay Chou PT Theme song - description here TR Theme song - I took the main part from the AOD game Feel free to comment & if there are special requests, I will try my best to fulfill them! :)

Loch Ness, sea dragons, sea serpents: myth or reality? Well the oarfish is real, for sure. Known as the dragon of the deep, this odd creature is the longest bony fish is the sea. This deep-sea species are usually found in tropical regions; it's not uncommon to see them because they tend to wash up ashore & float at the water surface when they are sick/dying. Description Longest oarfish ever measured was 11m long. The oarfish has a tapered & elongated silver-colored body - it has a majestic-looking dorsal fin, with the color ranging from pink to red. The anal fin & claudal fin (ie at the end) is greatly reduced/non-existent: the body tapers to a fine point. The species has no teeth - it is scaleless, covered by easily-abraded, silvery guanine - not eaten because of gelatinous property. The species have been known to swim by undulating its long dorsal fin - it has also been observed swimming vertically. Not much is known about their reproductive cycle but spawning has bee...

37 yrs ago the Malaysian government launched the New Economic Policy (NEP), or Dasar Ekonomi Baru (DEB) in Malay. There is increasing talk of ending the Policy & this has received mixed responses from the general public. So what's the hoo ha about, eh? The NEP The NEP was devised to achieve several goals, mainly: to reverse the social imbalances created under centuries of colonial rule - reduce poverty. to increase economic growth. Looking back, it's seen that the NEP is pro-bumiputera (the largest ethnic group), focusing on rural & Malay communities. The plans carried out under the NEP has undoubtedly strained the interethnic relations of Malaysians, especially between the Malays & Chinese. Implementation There are several key implementation steps taken: Redistribution of wealth: targeting ownership of enterprise by Bumiputera to 30% Education: providing more opportunities to Bumiputera students to study at public universities/abroad via entry requirements, scholar...

I apologize if my articles seem pretty random lately...I haven't had the time to really research & write out good stuff for your reading pleasure (damn you, finals!). I've managed to put in some short articles though; we'll have to be satisfied with that in the time being! I've reorganize the labels on my articles, let's have a looksee: Food: It's finally up, look for for more food-related articles Scribbles: Personal matters that I feel like ranting/sharing... Travel: A trip to Mt Kinabalu is in the works, peeps! Academic: Finals certainly pushed me to be more active in this section haha... I've been considering a chatbox section here but doesn't hold much appeal to me...We'll see about that! Random moment... I encourage y'all to check out the blogs that I've linked to; adds to your browsing pleasure! If you have suggestions for future articles, don't hesitate to email me at rowanlim@gmail.com...I may actually do it! Cheers & tha...

Hm...after nearly 2 decades, I truly feel the need to know more about my religion aka Buddhism...Took me a while to realize that it's not just a set of teachings etc, it provided me with answers when I needed them most... I've never had formal religious education. My earliest memory of knowing my religion was when I was browsing through my report card as a child & saw that under Religion/Agama was the word "Buddhism". I asked Dad what it was, & he just said that that's my religion. So then I began to learn the difference of Buddha & Buddhism so that I'd write the correct thing when I filled forms by myself. Time to appreciate the simple beauty of life I wondered if Buddhism was the same as other religions like Christianity & Islam where they worship God & sometimes have such defined boundaries/rules. I wondered what was the structure of the religion & somehow never took the time to really figure out. Mom & Dad never pressured to sen...

...pasta? I had a random thought...what is the correct way to eat pasta? Me love pasta, especially spaghetti bolognese & carbonara...Yum...So I searched online & found these: 1. Never eat pasta with a spoon, it's considered bad manners in Europe. Use a fork ONLY. 2. Never cut it up. It's already in the right length (10 inches long) so deal with it. 3. How to pick up the bloody spaghetti then? Well... Push the spaghetti towards 1 side of the plate. Use the fork & push a few strands of spaghetti to the other side of the plate. Twirl the fork vertically to get a nice bundle of spaghetti wrapped around the prongs of the fork. You may opt to twirl the spaghetti against the concave surface of the spoon. 4. Absolutely no slurping/splattering is allowed. Respect the noodle. 5. Chew your spaghetti when it's in that cavern of a mouth. People do choke from spaghetti. 6. Don't swallow the fork. Now that I know & you know how to eat pasta the right way, let's no...

This is Assignment 5 for Bioprocess Engineering Sem 1 08/09...Thanks to Shi for teaching me how to solve this question! You may choose to carry out matrix operations in Matlab or Microsoft Excel, I chose Matlab for this solution. Question: Solution: A pretty easy question, be careful with the matrix operations though, a careless slip would be extremely frustrating!

Yawning is an epidemic. Seriously. Try yawning when you're in a group of people & soon you'll see other people yawning too. Perhaps you'll yawn by the time you finished reading this article. Even I'm yawning as I'm typing this. Let's take a look at yawning that we don't know much about: Yawn for one, yawn for all Quick Facts: Yawning is the act of simultaneous inhalation of air & stretching of the eardrums, followed by exhalation of breath. The average yawn lasts about 6 seconds. It's an involuntary reflex. It has an infectious quality (an example of positive feedback mechanism) There's no concrete reason as to why we yawn: several factors include fatigue, boredom & drowsiness. A fetus in the womb yawns, beginning from as early as 11 weeks of development. The word "yawn" is from the Middle English word yanen . Humans yawn on average 10 times a day. Despite doing it daily, we still don't know much about it. Various theories h...

In the course of getting to know someone, one question that ALWAYS pops up is "what's your favorite color?"...We see colors everywhere & I'm sure y'all know that colors can invoke emotions & expressions in everyone. I went on to find out what is it about certain colors that make us tick & to bring some extra information for your reading pleasure :) What Is Color? Color comes from light; each color has its own specific wavelength & frequency. Actually the human eye can only detect 3 main colors: green, blue & red. The other colors are the result of mixing these 3 main colors in our mind *creepy humans* Color & Personality Your favorite color can give a few hints about yourself: Green : A great listener - someone who's never too busy to help a friend - able to put him/herself into another person's shoes - you may appear innocent at times but your natural curiosity & understanding of people makes you more streetwise than you seem. ...

Well since the possibility of this topic emerging in the finals this sem, I thought it couldn't hurt to try out a question related to this. Question: Solution: Credit to Shi, she was the one who figured out the solution! Thanks loads!

This is a very simple question about bioreactors (final chapter in CRE2), the question was taken from Chemical Reaction Engineering by Octave Levenspiel (Wiley). Question: Solution: Feel free to ask questions/offer suggestions/corrections!

Written by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, I first heard this poem when it was recited by Andrea Corr (of the Irish band the Corrs). The words plus Andrea's melodious Irish accent was a joy to listen to & it's one of my favorite poems. Never Give All The Heart Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up for the play, And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind by love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost. WB Yeats A simple poem that speaks of guarding your heart against fickle lovers. The words speak for themselves. I have the mp3 of Andrea's recital, if you're interested, let me know & I would be happy to email it ...

Just a short guide on how to answer the first question for Chemical Reaction Engineering 2; you don't need to know how to compute the hyperbolic functions sinh x, cosh x, coth x to solve this question, just a trusty calculator & accurate typing hehe :) Question: Solution: Feel free to comment & ask questions, I will try my best to answer! :)

Well after watching the stunner that was Quantum of Solace, we decided on impulse to kick back on Madagascar 2. It was GREAT FUN! The film was, again, better than I expected...Seems like today is a day for positive surprises, eh? The Plot Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo & Melman the giraffe are excited to go home after their stint in Madagascar. Boarding the plane "built" by the penguins with King Julien & Maurice on-board. The plane crashes (surprise?) in the middle of an African forest reserve & the gang finds themselves in a whole new world. Alex then learns that he was from this place & was taken away by hunters as a cub to NY. He is welcomed into the local lion pride by his father Zuba, the pride's alfa lion. He learns that there is much of his homeland & his family that he needs to learn; he & his father needs to learn to accept each other despite the conflicts that threaten to tear them apart. Marty is thrilled to find a who...

I watched this film with a lot of anticipation, despite atthan telling me it didn't have enough action & smooching scenes (hehe). It was WAY better than I expected & brilliantly done :) The Plot The film picks up from the previous movie (Casino Royale) where James Bond has Mr. White in the boot of his Aston Martin with several other cars in pursuit as they drive past Italy's Lake Garda. Escaping these cars, Bond brings Mr. White to M where they proceed to interview him. However the interrogation was cut short & Mr. White escaped. Bond then begins to pursue leads to find out more about a secret organization that Mr. White was a part of, which he claims has people everywhere yet the British Secret Service has no clue about. He then goes to Haiti where his paths crossed with Camille, a beautiful woman. They then work together to unravel the conspiracy woven by Dominic Greene, a rich businessman-environmentalist, & an exiled Bolivian general to unsurp the current go...

This just came in: California voters approved Proposition 8, adding a provision in the state Constitution that "only marriage between a man & a woman is valid/recognized in California", citing uproar among the gay community. I, too, am disappointed to read of this after Obama's victory in the 2008 US Presidential Elections. Shame... How sad it is that the very people who voted for Prop 8 also voted for Mr. Obama. Hypocrisy, much? How can one vote for democracy & equality in rights when he/she voted to remove the rights of gays to be legally married? Shame. As mentioned in another article: this is a classic case of a majority using its powers in numbers to discriminate against a minority group. Shouldn't the marriage between 2 people, regardless of sexual orientation, be protected too? Legal chaos will begin as around 18000 couples were married in the state; the legality of these unions now hang in limbo. Is it not a fundamental right for an individual to be h...