Matfoo’s Weblog

BMW Hydrogen 7 came to Melbourne, Australia. To some of you who would be ???? What’s BMW Hydrogen 7? It’s basically the BMW 7 series luxurious car using the hydrogen technology. The normal 7 series would look like this.

What’s so special about this BMW Hydrogen 7? Well, normal car produces gas such as CO2, CO etc from the combustion, but for BMW Hydrogen 7, it produces water. Yup, H2O (water). Feeling very excited about it, we made our way to the Federation Square in Melbourne City to have a look. The exhibition is free.

I was kinda hoping to see the demo of this car with its technology. Instead of using petrol, this car actually takes liquid hydrogen! So, the temperature for hydrogen to stay in liquid form is slightly above the absolute zero temperature, 14 Kelvin or -260 Celsius. How did BMW do that? They used special kind of metal that can withstand that temperature yet maintaining the hydrogen in liquid form. Cool right? So when hydrogen mixed with oxygen, you get water. That’s the underlying idea for this BMW Hydrogen 7. The message is to have a greener car.

Anyway, I’m going to go into the details of the science behind it. What I would want to tell you all is how “interesting” is the exhibition. First of all, there’s no clear sign indicating where is this exhibition (maybe because it was the last day of the exhibition). Then, as we stepped into the exhibition hall, we are shown only 2 cars. Yup, 2 cars.

One BMW 1 series with using diesel that is supposed to be cleaner and more fuel efficient.

And yes, One BMW Hydrogen 7

Both cars are locked and so we can only peek from outside. To me the inside is just like any other BMW 7 series of BMW 1 series. The only difference about the BMW Hydrogen 7 is the black color round thing on top of the fuel flap. That’s where the hydrogen is inserted in. No car demo No technology demo No sit in

But…..the “interesting” part is, the hall is filled with reading material, visual, interactivity console and pictures about the technology. And they ended with yes, all this is in this BMW Hydrogen 7 series car here. THE END.

Oh boy, what an interesting exhibition of the car. All the touring of the hall for us in just about 10 minutes. Cool yea

This week had been a quite challenging week for me. It was a week of reading, reading, reading, simulating, reading, public holiday-ing (Australia Day) and yup, more reading. I was actually struggling to keep pace of the reading at first. But, it had all settled down. I sort of manage to have a system on how to read. Thanks to P. Lo for his tips and advices.

My supervisor had requested me to read certain books for my research and also for my course which I will be taking during fall. So this three are part of the book(s) that I am reading now.

On top of that, he requested me to run some simulations with the infamous MATLAB, analyze data, read journal papers and write document file in LaTeX. Not MS Word as we all are so familiar with but yup, LaTeX. My supervisor requested me to hand in all my weekly report to him using LaTeX so that I can learn faster about this software. As technical it may sound, but LaTeX is kinda cool. In the midst of learning, I found that LaTeX is really fun to use and I’m starting to like it (though at times lots of frustration can hit and it may take you one whole day to figure one simple command). But hey, when you managed to get what you want, you feel the “that” satisfaction. So, from the picture below, you can see the infamous MATLAB window on your left and LaTeX on your right with some simulation result in the middle of the picture. Wah Seh!!! I’m HL-ing. Nah….not HL-ing but just to let you guys know what am I doing so far.

And prior to bed time, I am currently reading, Robert Ludlum’s Bourne Legacy by Eric van Lustbader.

Never in my life, I have to read so many things. I’m kinda regret that I didn’t listen to my parents to read more books while I was little. Sorry mom and dad. Now, then it all comes back to haunt me .

Australian Open ended withe Maria Sharapova won the the Women’s Single (which I missed due to seeing the wrong time) and Djokovic won the Men’s Single after beating Tsonga in a very exciting final.

GP2 Asia kicked off in Dubai, UAE. Team Meritus from Malaysia did a great job in the first race. Fairuz Fauzy, our Malaysian driver finally not only scored his first points but his first podium (finishing 2nd in Race 2) in GP2 series after failing to do so in two seasons (2005 and 2006). Renault’s test driver, Romain Grosjean seems to be dominating the race by winning both races (Race 1 and Race 2) and I reckon this guy would be the new GP2 Europe champion following the road of Nico (Williams F1), Lewis (McLaren F1) and Timo (Toyota F1).

Badminton, Korean Open have not been kind to our Malaysian player. Almost all Malaysian got stuck in 2nd round. Lee Chong Wei have to withdraw the match due to fever after battling half way with Lee Hyun Il. Is kinda sad but he did put a fight despite having fever while playing.

I started reading James Patterson’s book when I accidentally pickup one of his book called, “Cradle and All”. And that book kept me reading non-stop for the story was mysterious and full of suspense. After that, I decided to read his books starting with this famous Alex Cross series. I read all his 12 books prior to this latest one starting with “Along Came A Spider” till “Cross”. And this 13th installment is called “Double Cross” (I was googling and found that the 14th one will come out soon entitled “Cross Country”).

For those who have read Patterson’s Alex Cross series, you will find out that after reading 3-4 of this novels, you will find almost same plot been used all over again and again. A serial maniac killer doing killing spree and Alex Cross is summoned or forced or reluctantly led to solve the case. Well, you’ll find the same kind of plot in this book. The only difference I would say is the way the killer kills.

You may wonder why I still continue reading his book if the plot is so predictable. Well, I guess the reason I give would explain why Alex Cross series is still being written. The ending of all his book left a very suspense question mark for curious reader (like me) to continue wanting to know what would happen next. Like this “Double Cross”, yes again…the ending is quite a cliffhanger and reader would want to wait for the next book to find out what’s going to happen. This I can give an analogy of watching Hong Kong TVB series. You know that the plot of the TVB series is always like “this”, like “that” and so on but you’ll want to watch the whole 20 or 30 or 40 or even 50 episodes! just to see the ending. Well, Alex Cross series is just like that.

I guess this won’t discourage people from reading James Patterson’s book. But if you want to give it a try, I would recommend you to start with his “Cradle and All”.

Anyway, to give a bit of proper review for this book, every character has a villain. And yes, the “famous” can’t-die villain is back. In addition to a new serial killer, Alex Cross has to not only solve the case but deal with his past villain.

For a non tennis fans like me, Australian Open does have some impact for both myself and Flora. Channel 7 is a dedicated channel to show live matches from morning till night with some brief breaks for news and sitcoms during the matches interval. Yea, we are starting to feel a little bit of the interest in watching tennis. Actually, the game itself wasn’t that bad but I really can’t be that patient to watch a game that would last 4-5 hours (f.y.i. Hewitt and Federer did play that long before beating their opponent in the 3rd round). The atmosphere in the city was filled with the tennis-aura. Haven’t been to the city for almost a week, we were pretty shocked to see banners here and there and people buzzing in the tram to get to the tennis venue. I didn’t take any pictures for we were on our way to church hence, didn’t bring the camera

To added to the woe of not bringing the camera, when we went to Victoria St, Richmond for our weekly groceries, the whole street was closed! For the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration. (Similar to Chinese New Year celebrated back in Malaysia just that the Vietnamese celebrated it earlier. The whole street turned into like a food fair. Sigh…..regretted for not bring our camera.

Visited Queen Victoria Market again for our weekly vegetables and fruits shopping. This time, we went a bit extreme by buying too “much” fruits. You can see Flora’s blog on this. A box of Kiwi cost us only AUD 2. The consequences of a bit greediness is that we will have Kiwi for every meal for the whole week, LOL.

After almost a month of winter break, motor racing begins again. The 5th round of A1 GP is in Taupo, New Zealand. Team Malaysia again have no luck retiring both races due to racing incident. Sadly, Team Malaysia used to be competing for podium in the first two series are now struggling to even make the top 10. Is either other team is getting better and better or Team Malaysia is dropping in racing and technical quality. I do hope is the former rather than the latter.

GP2 Asia made its debut with testing in Dubai followed by the first race this coming Sunday. Malaysia again have a team in it named, Qi Meritus Mahana. Team Meritus is well known among open seater racing in Asia region and it’s hope that the team will do well in the GP2 Asia series.

Lee Chong Wei saved Malaysia by walking away with a win over Lee Hyung Il. This match can be considered the battle of the discipleship of Li Mao. Ironically all the three have the surname “Li” in Chinese LOL! No live matches in Australia, hence have to depend on Tournament Software to watch the match “live”. No, no, it is not live video streaming but live scores. Well, is better than none. I felt so excited even though watching only the scores changing. Just have to be creative a bit when come to watching my favorite sports here.

This is a new section where I will review on novels/books that I read. In fact I read quite a number of them in 2007 averaging about 2 /month and that was also before this blog started. And when the blog started, I was in the midst of coming to Melbourne and no more books till last week. One of my favorite author, John Grisham with his quite latest book entitled, Playing for Pizza. For sneak preview to this book, you can go to the official website of John Grisham for 2 chapters of sneak preview.

When I first saw the title, I translated the title literally. Playing for pizza, which towards the end of the book does talk about playing for pizza literally. I would say this book is about having a second chance and be passionate about the things you like. This book is about an NFL player, Rick made a mess in the American league. With the league being so unforgiving, he was out of contract to play anymore. His manager though managed to find him a team that would want him and that is an American Football team in Italy. Yup, in ITALY. That’s when the title comes in, playing for pizza. Rick will be playing for the pizza famous country, Italy.

I don’t want to reveal much of the details But what I can say is that throughout the whole adaptation process, Rick learn a lot about himself, the game, the people around him and how he was given a second chance to make it big again. It’s a very touching process and more importantly for me, I can feel the excitement of American Football (though till now I still don’t understand the game and will not try to understand the game).

If you know Mr. Grisham’s writing style in his past 19 books (I read all the 19 and the 20th which is this one), his ending is normally very abrupt and cliffhanging, which prompt the readers to imagine the best possible scenarios. Hence, I was quite nervous towards the end of the book expecting similar trend. To my surprise, the ending this time was quite reasonable and I like it. But what caught my attention which prompted me to blog on this book review is the author’s note at the end of the book, which I have extracted and highlighted in BOLD ITALIC.

“………….The Panthers are a bunch of tough Italians who play for the love of the game, and for the pizza afterward.………..” (John Grisham)

For the love of the game, the Italians get together and play and enjoy the pizza afterward. It makes me ponder and reflect upon the bonding and friendship one can forge over the love of sports and/or games. In Malaysian context I think it would sound more like “Playing for Mamak’s Maggi Goreng” after a game of futsal, which is quite true where after a futsal game most of Malaysian will turn to Mamak for a time of relaxation and bonding of friendship.

For the first time I’m seeing a clinic doctor (local GP) in Melbourne. Unlike in Malaysia, when you are sick, you go straight to the clinic to see the doctor. Here, you need to make appointment. Made the appointment last Thursday (3 Jan 08) and the only next availability was Monday (7 Jan 08). I was wondering what if one is about to faint or die etc…. I guess, that’s when you go straight to ER Department in the hospital and not the local GP. Actually, the main reason for me to see the local GP is to get their prescription so that I can get my medicine refilled. Sadly, when I met the doctor, it was more of me telling him whatever knowledge and medical history of myself to him and he key in all the details into his computer and that’s it. The only advice he gave me was,

Doctor: Do you still have enough medicine?
Me: Yea, about a week of supply.
Doctor: Alright, I suggest you continue with those and see Dr. L.C next week and we’ll see how’s your condition. You are on the right track.
Me: (In my heart, Duhhh…..-_-)
Doctor: So, you come next week and see Dr. L.C as I will be on leave. Have a nice day. Good bye.
Me: Thank you (what else could I say)

So, I made another appointment for next week and we’ll see how things go.

Finally, met up with all the team in my research group. The group is not that big. Just the four of us. It was an interesting meeting where ideas were poured out and we learn from each other. My supervisor is cool that after the meeting he brought and bought us coffee. (He was late for the meeting so he apologised with the coffee). That noon was pretty hot, in fact the hottest of the week with temperature hitting 41 C. One of the team member just came to Australia from France and speak limited English. Poor thing, the menu a bit stranger to her and the only thing she recognised was Cappuccino. Three of us ordered Ice Coffee, Ice Mocha and Ice Chocolate and she is the only one with hot drinks. In fact the whole cafe! She was shocked when the ordered came and upon finishing, she got herself another cup of Orange Smoothie. It was a fun time as NOTHING on research were talked about and merely getting to know each other.

On Wednesday, I received my letter of appointment to see a rheumatologist and the appointment is SIX MONTHS away! 11 June 2008 to be exact. It will be during WINTER! and it’s at 9am! Man….. it’ll be freezing morning trip to the hospital. Anyway, I’ll make the effort to see the specialist and see what advice the specialist can give me.

We finally visited Queen Victoria’s Market (QVM). Went there on Saturday around 1430. The closing time was 1500. The market is pretty big. Selling all sorts of thing ranging from daily fresh to souvenirs. The price are pretty good as well, especially during the closing time. The seller will shout and give amazing price to clear off their products. After almost 2 months of groceries shopping, we realised that shopping for vegetables and fruits, QVM is cheaper than the place we normally shop in Richmond. However, for meat, Richmond is still the cheaper one. In fact much cheaper.

God bless us again when auntie called and gave us some more winter clothing and food. I just can’t thank God enough for His abundance. According to auntie, she will drop by again to pass us iron and ironing board. Actually, I wasn’t wearing most of my shirt as there’s no iron. How amazing is He!

Australian Grand Slam Tennis, Melbourne Open is on next week. Apparently a very big thing here. So, I will watch out and keep posted. Till then.

“Bumped” into the blog of a fellow MMUian colleague of mine talking the first time of experiencing life as an academician. It made me reflected down my own memory lane about my first of everything of life as an academician. Here are some of the list….

Academic

• 1st day as tutor – 15 May 2002
• 1st immediate colleague – D. Poh, B. Chia, P. Lo and V.T. Goh (we all reported duty on the same day)
• 1st office room – FOE, Wing A, Room AR3010
• 1st tutored subject – Communication Network
• 1st disastrous tutorial session – Electronics II (Literally “boycotted” by the students and being labeled as a tutor who can’t teach even with solution on his hand )
• 1st invigilation – Mid term test for Engineering Mathematics I (even thanked by a student who I gave extra time as he was lost finding the exam venue)
• 1st marking – My subject assignment which I mark to the precision of 2 decimal point. Got a @_@ from the subject coordinator
• 1st academic evaluation – 3.9+/5.0
• 1st day as lecturer – 07 Oct 2004
• 1st lectured subject – Control Theory, lecturing chapter 3 on Transient and Steady-state Analysis
• 1st disastrous lecture session – Communications I (being complained for teaching too fast and half-heartedly)
• 1st industrial training placement – Pioneer Technology
• 1st industrial training visit – Pioneer Technology, Muar, Johor (what a drive, thanks V.T. Goh for accompanying me!)

Research

• 1st final year project/thesis student – K.N. Tan
• 1st master supervisor – Assoc. Prof. Dr. M. S. Beg (which later, I changed to Dr. A.H. Tan as I changed research field)
• 1st doctorate supervisor – Dr. A.H. Tan (which later, I changed to Assoc. Prof. Dr. E. Weyer as I got offer from University of Melbourne, Australia)
• 1st conference paper – Optimisation of static nonlinear compensator for bilinear systems
• 1st conference attended – IMTC 2004 in Como, Italy
• 1st journal paper – Ternary pseudorandom signal design for uniform excitation of reduced effect of nonlinear distortion

Every 1st moment in my academic life seems to be stuck vividly in my memory. Nonetheless….I treasure every moment of it good and bad.

This may be an old news but for the benefit of those who still don’t know, MMU (Multimedia University) has a new President. Prof. Datuk Ghauth Jasmon retired after heading MMU for 11 years.

New president, Prof. Zaharin Yusoff will spear head MMU effective 2 Jan 2008.

Let’s see how the new president will change MMU in the next decade.