Answer to "How much you know me?"

Ok, after the much delay, here are the answers to my earlier questions..

Q1: What is my most favourite food?
A: All type of nuts and beans especially peanuts!

Haha...nothing exotic, somehow I like peanut since I was a kid. My family planted groundnuts near the rubber estate, and every Chinese New Year, we would 'fry' the groundnuts using sands instead of oil, in a huge wok, it was fun to do that, and it is nice to eat them.

I also like hazel nuts, macadenia nuts, almond nuts, cashew nuts etc.

I also like all type of beans such as redbean, soyabean, greenbean...but somehow I never like 'petai'...it is so smelly. Whenever I see redbean or greenbean 'tongsui' (literally 'sugar water', i.e. sweet soup), i will sure want to drink and eat the bean.

Whenever I felt moody, I will crave for peanuts or beans, somehow it will make my mood much better.

Unfortunately, eating beans produces a lot of gas in the stomach and this is bad because I am having gastric problem.

A lot of people think that peanut contains a lot of cholestrol etc., actually this is untrue. The famous MayoClinic website outlined the benefit of eating Nuts and Seeds (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts etc.) and Legumes (beans etc., actually peanuts is of this legumes family and not nuts family). Of course, this need to be eaten in moderation.

Q2: Which is my most favourite field of study?
[hint: not necessary the one that I have studied most]
A: Physics!

Physics has always been my most favourite subjects since my secondary schools days and I am always best with it as compared with Chemistry and Biology. I think this is mainly because I hate and not good in memorizing things, I just somehow could not take in things that I do not understand especially in memorizing those organic formulas and the name of fauna and flora! In physics, everything has logic to it, that is also why I also like mathematics and computer science (particularly programming and computation). In my university days when I was majoring in Mathematics (was supposed to study engineering but found that it is too dangerous for me, glad that I ended up in Mathematics, long story for another occasion), and minoring in computer science (which I didn't learn anything at all), we are required to take about 20 credit hours from any science faculty, so I took all those from physics department. On top of that, I even learn Special Relativity on my own by just reading books, I also learned Robotics on my own after I graduated.

My most interested topics are of course Cosmology, Theory of Everything, Quantum Mechanics and anything related to Modern Physics. I know everything to know for a layman, but not in detail as to a physicist.

But to have a career as a Physicist (especially Modern Physicist) is almost like without future in Malaysia, there are simply no solid research support and community here.

As for Computer Science, I was destined for it once I discovered I was very good at it when I was in Lower Six (pre-U) where I have my first programming experience. So, no regret on that.

I would have preferred a career in Physics, and a hobby in Computer Science, but well that is being idealistic, I am happy with what I am doing now.

Q3: Who is my most favourite scientist?
[hint: related to Q2]
A: Who else? Albert Einstein! Also Issac Newton!

Both of them changed the world! They are not only scientist, they are philosophers as well. i am not a big fan of Stephen Hawking, you got to dig my post on comments on comments to find out why.

They are many great scientists around, somehow i am not good at names...:(

Q4: Who is my most fovourite singer?
[hint: he is long dead]
A: Elvis Presley!

I think there is not a song by Elvis that I have not heard of. I probably have most of his hundreds of songs.

Well I am not from his era, I am not so old..:) Elvis is still one of the greatest singer of all time and of course he is the King of Rock and Roll. His voice is very unique, his songs are nice.

People asked why I like Elvis so much, of course first of all I like his songs and his voice, but sometime I also find that there is a lot of things I can learn from him. People would say all kind of bad things about him, well, I certainly don't intend to follow his food steps, to be famous like that is really not my life goal, I don't think his kind of life is the kind I want, I certainly would not want to die at his age!!

Nevertheless, one thing is certain, he had a lot of struggle in his life and yet he is able to live beyond those struggles. This somehow is something I should learn, to live beyond my limitation and constraints.

I generally preferred his slow rock and sentimental songs and not so much those fast rock type of songs. Whenever I am feeling moody, other than eating peanuts..I would listen to Elvis Presley!

My other favourite singers are none other than Nat King Cole, Roy Orbision, Cliff Richard, Engelbert Hunperdict and many more...so you notice mostly Oldies. I find it hard to find out what modern singers I like unless i am recommended to listen to it, there are just too much noise in the modern music. However though, I do enjoy listening to Robbie Williams, Michael Learns to Rock etc....not too new though. Any good recommendation?

i also like western classical music, especially from the Romantic Era, Mozart of course, and still trying to appreciate Beethoven. I like those music with piano in it...and I also enjoy listening to all kind of Opera! I have not watched the latest version of Phantom of the Opera...:(

Q5: Which is my most favourite TV series?
A: Star Trek!! ...my most favourite and about the only series I watch!

Unfortunately, Astro screening of Star Trek is so unpredictable, so disappointing, I may get rid of my Astro!

I have watched almost every episodes of Star Trek Voyager 2 or 3 years ago (a episode a day!), currently still trying to figure out when on earth is Astro showing Star Trek Enterprise, last year they kept repeating Season 1 unti I gave up watching. Now they are showing Season 2, but i find it hard to follow the Astro lousy scheduling.

I was never a fan of Star War....other than seeing the special effect. On the contrary, one do not watch Star Trek for special effect, but the story instead! Strictly speaking, Star Trek is more of a science fiction, and Star War is more of a science fantasy!

Other series......hmm.....oh recently Apprentice, can learned a lot of things from it. Astro are always very slow even though we have to pay $$$ for it, so i watch from TV3 instead, but recently finished screening already. I wonder when is next season?

Of course, I like to watch Discovery Channel and also Natioanal Geographic, but those are not exactly TV series.

I like those old time TV series when i watched while I was in secondary school....such as Big Valley, High Chaperral, The Watsons etc. There are a lot of human story/drama in older days series.

Q6: What is my most favourite magazine?
[hint: there are more than one, just name one]
A: Scientific American, New Scientists!

I don't read much magazines anyway. I used to subscribe to Times but stopped because I do not have time to read Times.

Q7: Which story book (more than 500 pages) I have finished reading in the last 10 years?
A: None!!

With so many unread books, I hardly have the time to read a short story book! I also find it hard to read nowaday, too much reading my technical books and also looking at the monitor. I would prefered to watch some good story-based movies instead!

Q8: Which technical book I have read front-to-back more than once?
[hint: quite a few books, just name one]
A: I think the following books I have read more than once long long time ago:
a. Waite Group's Turbo C Programming for the PC by Robert Lafore - I started learning C from this book, very good indeed. Have to read more than once in order to fully understood it. When it comes to learning C++, I have no books, mostly learning the hard way by trials and errors. I have not read any programming books ever since.
b. Interactive Computer Graphics, A top-down approach with OpenGL (First Edition) by Edward Angel. I have a quick tutorial on OpenGL using this book, good book. There is new edition just being released, I think it is a good book too, I am still waiting for the book from the publsiher to have a better idea of the book.

I think there are a few more books that I have read through once. In reality, it is hard to read through a technical book even once!

Q9: What is the name of the programing language and compiler that I wrote my first paid program?
A: Turbo Basic!

Turbo Basic is by Borland and is also one of the first IDE, it is very good as compare with the tedious GWBasic.

My first paid program is also happened to be a graphics program (with some mathematics)! FYI, i have not attended a single class on Computer Graphics my whole life!

I wrote that program while I was in my 3rd year in USM, I wrote the program for lecturers/researchers in School Of Biological Sciences. The few years after that, i was hired as their Research Officers including during my final year, the main language used then is FORTRAN, mostly on a mainframe computer. I also wrote programs for lecturers in School of Pharmacy and also School of Mathematical Science (where I studied my undergrad and master), mostly in Basic, Fortran, Pascal or C.

When I was in Form Six and after Form Six, I was paid a lot of money to teach Basic programming in my secondary school computer club...it was Apple II era then.

Q10: How much hard disk space in the first PC I owned?
A: 40Mb...that was supposed to be a lot!

My first PC was a 386DX with 2Mb RAM and I probably owned one of the fastest PC in Penang (not counting companies) at that time when most people could only afford a 286 with 1Mb RAM and 20 Mb hard disk.

That was in year 1990.

It cost me 6000 ringgit...that was a lot of money at that time, have to get loan from others to buy that. It was broken after 2 or 3 years due to heavy used by my housemates and friends!

I have never bought a PC after that until 14 years later, when I bought my AMD64 in December 2004!

Alright....thanks for reading!