Progressing oneself

haha

Why Men Love Gaming More than many other things...

Having a shitty night, so wanted to play my PS3..it has been a long time since I touch that black lean machine. Gaming is such a good escape, and you now know why most men play it...and I've been at it since early 1980s when my dad got me my first gaming console - Atari. Kudos to Nolan Bushnell who co-founded Atari back in 1972. Read this article about his ideals, cool shit.

“When I hired engineers and people on the creative side, I never looked at their grades,” he said, referring to the teams he built at Atari and beyond. “I interviewed them strictly on their hobbies, and if they did not have a hobby in technology I wouldn’t hire them….

I bet I'll get hired. It's so easy to conjure out 10 good reasons why men love gaming...easier than well, a lot of other things non-important style.

1) Because you can always restart the game if it goes wrong. Slightest itty bitty wrong step, restart...no problems asked, no worries.

2) A good game is smart - knows that if it is too difficult, noone wants to play it; and if it is easy, gamers find it no kick. Basically it coded in degrees of difficulty at the right time with the correct adequate training. Basically hardly any sudden surprises that throws off your ego and makes you want to throw the game away.

3) It builds up men's ego, top scores or completing a game makes one feel accomplished. Perhaps a short term goal which seemingly makes that $80 you spent on the game worthwhile.

4) It is easily understood, perhaps because most programmers are men. There is no need for complicated instruction manuals, no need to take a class to complete a game. Basically not much effort is needed besides trying.

5) There is hardly any pressure. The only reason why you want to play that game, is because you want to. Nothing else, no pressure whatsoever.

6) You do not have to attend game forum, or groupie discussions, or game clubs etc. You only attend it because you want to improve, learn more and not because you have to rub shoulders with everyone else in order to do well in the game.

7) Because the game will never tell you to stop having fun. The very purpose of the game is to have fun, to loosen you up, to chill you off from all the pressure you are already getting at work and at home. It gets you away from the mundane life you are already having.

8) The game will not mind if you are yelling at it because you've just lost a game and you feel shitty making that one wrong move that cost the game but you can do better next time. There is no game nagging at you to admit you made a wrong move and it wants you to admit your mistake and eat your ego for breakfast and die and repent NOW.

9) The game allows you to cool off, pause, take a walk, think about things, sleep on it, do some research on the next best move...take a month off pondering about nothing at all. No explanations needed.

10) You can love your game and have your peace as well, you can turn off the game without guilt.

Time for some space out time. I'm out.

Geeks rule!

This is absolutely hilarious. 2 of the biggest honchos in our technology world having a conversation.

I managed to dunk last night!

Had a great ball game last night, and managed to elevate 30inches off the ground and dunk!
And Kentucky is NCAA champions!





Well I bet you all knew it was a joke by an engineer..lame...

Happy April Fools' Day...and yeah I still can't dunk and Kentucky got trumped from careless plays and reckless treys...so hope Duke wins!

Have a great long weekend...

Equiping your cars with energy convertors!

Based on my previous entry on killing mother earth with our eagerness to drive fast. All oil guzzlers have to control their usage especially with the rising fuel costs. But what recent studies reveal, will change all that. Coming in the near future! All hail engineers!

In hope of being more earth friendly and energy efficient, researchers have recently came to know that heat makes photons too. Previously the vast majority of photovoltaic ,or solar cells as it is commonly known, capture only photons emitted by the sun, but there many other sources of electromagnetic radiation exist. Since combustion of any kind emits photons in the infra-red (IR) portion of the spectrum, the waste heat produced by generators, combustion engines, etc offers a potential source of radiation for solar cells with the appropriate bandgap.

So effectively, we can place solar cells in close proximity to a combustion heat source and harness that energy. Well won't go into further engineering technical details.

Let's just hope they can find cheap ways of creating thermophotovoltaic devices with low-bandgap materials to exploit low energy, long wavelength IR photons which my car engine emits and the control of excess heat just in case I rev above 7500rpm.

Going for much needed vacation soon...here's my fav Dilbert comic strip for the moment.



Let's end the tough engineering work week I had with a self poking engineer joke - especially about my low pay..man we try to save the world, but we get paid peanuts, in Singapore that is and no I do not mean golden peanuts which charity organisations get over here.

At the end of a job interview, a young Engineer fresh out of NTU was asked, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"
The Engineer replied, "In the neighborhood of $100,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."
The interviewer said, "Well, what would you say to a package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years - say, a red RX-8?"
The Engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?"
And the interviewer replied, "Yeah, but you started it.

Need an Engineering joke to rid of some Singtel modem stupidity

Spent 3 hours debugging the stupid Singtel modem last night. Which I, being an engineer, couldn't figure out. Perhaps because Singtel was trying to create an idiot proof experience, providing no datasheet, no userguide, no freaking anything but a damn CD (and it contains nothing but more idiot-pissed assed proof crap). And to all who might be signing up to the Singtel ADSL plans, there are a few things you have to note.
First, the wireless shit doesn't work til you freaking connect the wireless modem, to the PC to the wall phone line. For a person living on split levels and no phone line in my room, that's a freaking painful experience.
Second, don't expect to find help on the internet when you CANNOT go on the internet with the modem not working!!
Third, fark it..just go and sleep after reading some jokes; bug the helpline tomorrow.

SingNet BroadBand Technical Support
Tel: 1800-848 6933
Mon-Sun & Public Holidays: 8am - 12mn


Found this off a engineering website (We engineers can take jokes about ourselves!)

The Top 10 Things Engineering School didn't teach

10. There are at least 10 types of capacitors.
9. Theory tells you how a circuit works, not why it does not work.
8. Not everything works according to the specs in the databook.
7. Anything practical you learn will be obsolete before you use it, except the complex math, which you will never use.
6. Always try to fix the hardware with software. (Explains why all I get is a freaking CD to fix my Singtel modem issue)
5. Engineering is like having an 8 a.m. class and a late afternoon lab every day for the rest of your life.
4. Overtime pay? What overtime pay? (Now you tell me)
3. Managers, not engineers, rule the world. (Now you freaking tell me!!!)
2. If you like junk food, caffeine and all-nighters, go into software.
1. Dilbert is a documentary. (Isn't it?)

Sick but true..

Q: What do engineers use for birth control?
A: Their personalities.

This one i don't understand..I see people's shoes all the time.

Q: How can you tell an extroverted engineer?
A: When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own.

The best one yet:

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with an Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

One for the road if you have a mechanical engineer for Aunt Agony.