I am ambidextrous!

I just realized I am "kind-of" not left-handed, I am ambidextrous !!

Ambidextrous what?

Relax.... it is not a disease.

Wiki Entry on Ambidextrous says:

In modern times, it is more common to find people considered ambidextrous who were originally left handed, and learned to be ambidextrous either deliberately or during childhood in institutions such as schools where right-handed habits are often emphasized. Also, since many everyday devices are designed to be only ergonomic for right handed people, many left handed people have no choice but to use the device with the right hand (a good example is a can opener). As a result, left handed people are much more likely to develop motor skills in their non-dominant hand than right handed people (who are not subjected to left-favouring devices).

Hmm.. this word is new to me.

I guess I can say I am "mildly ambidextrous" (haha... wonder if there is ever such term) and very much a left-handed person though I was forced to write and brush my teeth by my primary school teachers. (those were the days even adults do not know how to brush teeth properly...do they still teach that in school?).

Many years ago, I understood why people says that left-handed people are more prone to accident when i turned on the water tape in the bathroom of a hotel; apparently it is common that the left tape is for hot water and the right tape is for cold water, I was almost cooked :(

As a computer science guy, one Wiki Entry on Left-handed and Possible Effects in Humans on Thinking caught my attention and amusement:

... According to this theory, right-handed people are thought to process information using a "linear sequential" method in which one thread must complete its processing before the next thread can be started. Left-handed persons are thought to process information using a "visual simultaneous" method in which several threads can be processed simultaneously. ..... This seems to suggest that left-handed people have an excellent ability to multi-task, and anecdotal evidence suggests that there are more creative stems due to this ability to multi-task.... Right-handed people process information using "analysis", which is the method of solving a problem by breaking it down to its pieces and analyzing the pieces one at a time. By contrast, left-handed people process information using "synthesis", which is the method of solving a problem by looking at the whole and trying to use pattern-matching to solve the problem

Ahem....multi-threading? True it may be.. I wonder if I can take it seriously. ;-)

Ok, thank me for knowing a new word! :)

What would i say if it is the last lecture of my life?

I almost never review or comment anything I seen on the net in my blog, but there is always a first.

Sadly, my first is about somebody's last.

A famous professor of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university a few days ago on Sept. 18, 2007. The title of his talk was "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". you may watch it at http://www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html

Though he is dying, there was so much life in the talk. As someone who is also in academia, his talk is indeed a very encouraging and inspiring one. The talk is not about the fact that he is dying, but the fact how he has lived and gave his life for good cause. This is an exemplary example of how a true academician should be.

People think that academia do not have all the problem exist in the business corporate world, this is very untrue. It is very sad that many academicians treat educations as just a career and there will do all kind of things just to climb up the academic corporate ladder and totally forgetting that we are educators. I wonder if somehow our lives would to end early like Professor Randy Pausch, would we be able to say that we have live meaningful lives like Professor Randy?

What our last lectures would be like?

Hooray! Secret Recipe is now at Cyberjaya!!

Yes, you read it right!

Hooray! Secret Recipe now has a branch in Cyberjaya !!

We discovered it by accident!

Today when me and the new tutor (William) went hunting for food, we decided to go to the relatively new mamak stall opposite Street Mall since it was at about 9pm and there won't be food left at Street Mall.

To our surprise, we saw the Secret Recipe restaurant near that place! Here it is:



Oops... sorry, kind of hard to see since the photo was taken using my handphone.

Here are some photos of the inside:





The location:



It seems it just opened 4 days ago.

I took the "long black coffee" and lasagne, well, this is the first time I took Lasagne from Secret Recipe... nice! The coffee came with a free brownie as a promotional item.

Now we have OldTown, Secret Recipe..... where is KFC, McDonald, Pizza Hut? :)

Putrajaya Firework Grand Finale

I went to see the Putrajaya Fireworks display once again for the Grand Finale. The place we watched from was about the same as the previous one but a little nearer, in fact it is at a point in Cyberjaya that is the nearest to PICC, but across the lake. The view there was very good. Click HERE to see the location.

The display seems to be much more boring as compared with the previous two display, perhaps it is because our expectations were much higher then after watching all the previous ones.

There were much less people and cars this time, thus we do not need to park our car too far.

Anyway, I managed to take some good photos. Believe it or not, after having this camera (Sony Cybershot P-10) for more than 3 years, there are still a lot of features which I am not sure of because I am too lazy to read the manual (actually also due to the reason that the manual printing is just too small). I realized only a few hours ago after i downloaded the soft-copy of the manual that the camera has a preset setting specially for taking fireworks photos.

Okay, here are some sample of the photos which I took:































For the rest of them, please go to my Malaysia International Fireworks Competition - Grand Finale (Sept 2, 2007) Collection.

I have also asked Ah Kek (my former students) to help to take videos from PICC using my video camera, since they are going there to watch.

Here are the videos:









Btw, the winner for this competition is Australia... oh dearly me, that is the one I missed!

Hmmm... I think I have enough of fireworks!!

Putrajaya Firework Team Japan

After the Italy performance last Saturday, we just can't get enough of it and decided to watch the one by the Japan Team (formerly World Champion I think) on the Merdeka (August 31) Eve.

Previously we watched the Italy Team performance on the road towards Dengkil and PICC but we got to sit on the floor with little stones and occasionally the ERL will zoomed by disturbing our views. My blog about it is HERE.

This time we decided to go somewhere nearer somewhere at the lake near Cyber Height overlooking PICC:



It is a much more comfortable place, nearer and have direct line of sight to the firing zone besides PICC. The downside was that there were a huge crowd there as well. Luckily we parked our car near Cyberview Lodge and after the show we got to walk a little to the car, but it is still far better than got stuck in the traffic ...



You won't believe that this is Cyberjaya..more like KL. 8 years in Cyberjaya and i have never seen such traffic jam.

Second thought, what traffic jam? There were NO traffic right after the fireworks display... the road was more like a huge giant car park, most cars didn't even turn on their engines because there were no cars moving for quite a while.

The usually fresh Cyberjaya air became so polluted with all these cars around.

Okay, about the performance, a few of us think that it is not as good as the Italy one. It was kind of dull and boring in the beginning, it was better only towards the end, here is the photo of the ending:



Click the above photo to see all the photos I took.

Here are the videos:







Well, shall look forward for tonight Grand Finale, stay tuned for more .. :)

Flickr Rocks!

I have never used the photos sharing Flickr though I have heard of it long long time ago. Yahoo who owns Flickr had announced that they are closing down their old Yahoo Photos, of course this is a smart move.

With that all Yahoo Photos users were given an option to migrate all their photos to the Flickr site. We were given a free three months Pro Account which allows unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Well, after transferring my photos from Yahoo Photos and trying to upload the fireworks photos, I think i am getting hooked to it, it is really easy to use, upload and share photos, link the photos to the blog, tagging and labelling them etc. It allows viewers to comment on the photos as well!

Really cool !

Okay, here is my flickr page: http://flickr.com/photos/wongyaping/

Do visit and leave your comments. Well, not much photos yet, shall upload all my other collections into it. I intend to continue the Pro Account once the free three months is over, it will be USD$24.95 per year. :)