Matfoo’s Weblog

I didn’t realise that I had used so many mobile phone over the past decade. As I was searching for the pictures of the phones that I’d used, I can’t believe how mobile phone evolved so fast over the period of 10 years. And the 10 years felt like yesterday.

I started having a mobile phone when I started my university. That time, Mobikom, 018 was still alive. My dad being a TM staff have special rate when subscribing to 018. Hence, he got me Ericsson GF388. (not Sony Ericsson as they hadn’t even merged.) This phone is SIM-less, meaning no SIM card required to use the phone.

When the era of SIM-less phone was almost over, and in addition to the merger of Mobikom into TMTouch, I needed to change phone to accommodate that. Hence, my dad gave me another phone, the Motorola MicroTac 2000 series to fit the TMTouch of 013. Again, thanks to TM member, we can get special rate for this 013 number. I got this phone at my 2nd year of university.

Classic right? By the way, the size of this SIM card was as big as an ATM card. Not the tiny little SIM card we have now. Not long after that, the large SIM card started to phase out. Even TMTouch at that time offered free data upload from the large SIM card to the smaller SIM card, that means, I need to change phone again. So, after using this classis Motorola for about 2 months, here comes my replacement phone to suit the smaller SIM card. Nokia 5110.

In my final year of university, my dad got himself a new phone. To my surprise, he asked me whether I wanted to swap phone with him? (Thanks dad!). So, I got myself another upgrade. Nokia 3310.

I used this phone till I graduate and started working. In fact a lot of people love this phone. They said it is one of the most practical reasonably priced phone ever made. Unfortunately, due to an accident, I dropped this phone quite bad that it had to be laid to rest for good. Then, for the first time, I need to buy my own phone. Scouting around for something different and within my tiny little budget, I settled myself with Motorola T191.

This phone is ok for the price that I paid for. The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that it didn’t have a button to switch to silent mode. I need to create a shortcut to lower down the volume. Other than that, I thought it was alright.

After using this phone for quite sometime, I was quite attracted to one of the Siemens phone. Since, my T191 is still working, well, I gave it a pass. Thanks to my wife, my sister and a bunch of friends, they got me the phone for my birthday! Thank you guys. So, the Siemens phone I got was A55.

Until today, I still use this phone but as alarm clock. I thought this phone has the best alarm clock among all the phone I’d used so far. After using it for about 2 years, my wife bought me a new phone on my another birthday. So, she got me Samsung SGH X680.

I’m still using this phone till today for my Malaysian mobile number. As for Australian mobile number, since subscribing phone here give you free phone (I thought it’s more cost reasonable than getting a prepaid), I got myself, Sony Ericsson Z610i.

So, what’s next? I’m longing to find out myself

As funny as it sounds, I’ve been longing and plan to try to eat KFC for 1.5 month! Every time, we plan to allocate one meal to eat KFC, something would popped up and we would have to postpone KFC to the next week and another and another and…….. FYI KFC is just a minute walk from my house.

After 1.5 month of postponing, finally, I get to enjoy the KFC. It’s not the original recipe that I am after. It’s the twister that’s good. The spicy sweet sauce twister was just fantastic.

KFC Spicy Sweet Sauce Twister

Next KFC to try is the Honey BBQ Sauce Twister. Hopefully not in another 1.5 month time

Doing postgraduate course exposed me to spaces like Lp, lp, H2, H-infinity, Hilbert, Banach etc.

I’m currently still a bit lost.

The understanding and introduction of these spaces are important especially in the area of robust and optimal control.

Gambarimasu!

NOTE: This post maybe very quite “emotionally expressive” for the posts are mostly my reflections and my thoughts. Readers discretion advised.

Can’t believe that six months have passed. It happened so fast that I hope that I could slow down the time.

I still have so much to learn and to understand. Everyday is a challenge.

I’ve been asked a lot on questions about whether I like it here? Do I miss home? Are we going to settle down here? Honestly……. I don’t know. Honestly……. I haven’t thought of these questions and I can’t give you an answer. I thought these are not the priorities for us yet. So, there’s no point of pondering over those questions. Ask us again upon my completion of my studies. The answer could still be “don’t know”.

God is good all the time. From virtually surviving based on faith to now, a more relaxed situation. Thank God for the spiritual and basic essential blessings. God works so miraculously especially in the area of providing our basic essentials. When the spirit prompted me to give towards church mission, I gave without thinking whether the giving will affect my daily needs. Well, God will sure provide and He gave me the exact amount that I gave the following day through some other blessings without me expecting it. This happened not only once, but twice. How good is our God! All you need to do is obey and trust Him.

Seeing how God works, I’m excited to see how He is going to work in the three years ahead of me. Thank you Father! Thank you Dads and Moms for all your support.

All glory be unto Him.

While I was having lunch in front of my PC at around 12:45pm, suddenly fire alarm went off. At first, I thought someone was doing some testing on the fire alarm. But….no! It wasn’t a drill and it’s for real. Within a minute, everyone started evacuating building, walking down the stairs in a orderly fashion. Upon reaching the ground floor, I smelt smoke and that sort of confirmed the real deal. While evacuating, I only managed to grab my mobile phone and that’s it. The thought of possibly losing everything did come to my mind. It was a scary thought but thank God that didn’t happen.

We were to gather in front of the building, while the fire warden with the fire department conducted the investigation and do the necessary. The fire alarm caught a lot of people off guard. It happened during lunch and some of them just returned from lunch without knowing what actually happened. Some have even just chopstick and/or spoon in their hand while their food is still in the building.

Gathering area

After a wait for about 30 minutes, the alarm was finally off and we were allowed back into the building. Soon later, an email came informing us about the fire alarm. The renovation work at the ground floor was the cause of the alarm.

When I came back to my desk, I took the picture of what was left behind when I was evacuating the building,

Lunch half way when evacuation took place.

Thank God no “serious” fire took place but the thought of possibly losing everything was quite scary.

Can’t really remember the last time I turned into panda.

My supervisor is away for 2 months to give short course lecture in Europe. Not that I can enjoy as he gave lots of stuff to do (which I enjoy actually). In addition, he requested me to report my progress to him every fortnight and two acting supervisors supervising me during his absence created this panda in me.

It was probably due to the face that I have to wake up at 7am every morning and come back from university at 7pm every evening. No wonder I felt so tired at times.

Despite that, I found these challenges fun though at times it can be really frustrating. When can I turn from this

to this

After postponing our zoo trip for several times, finally, we managed to visit the Melbourne Zoo. Located just 1km away from our house. The reason why we managed to visit the zoo this time was an arrangement between me and a new officemate of mine, who just so happened wanted to bring his children to zoo. This Malaysian office mate of mine just got to Melbourne exactly 1 month ago. According to his wife, the children (one 5 and one 3) got so excited that they woke up at 6am even though we agreed to meet at 915am. LOL.

Melbourne Zoo is just 1km away. We walked along the shared pedestrian bicycle lane (route in blue) to get to the zoo.

The zoo opens daily from 9am to 5pm. While planning for the visit, the zoo’s website did mention about one need around 3-4 hours to finish the whole visit. So by starting at 915am, we expect to finish the whole visit by 1.15pm-1.30pm.

From the look of the map of the zoo, the zoo does look big.

The Melbourne Zoo Map

At the zoo’s entrance

The weather forecast was high of 17 C and although it looks cloudy, it didn’t rain. Really thank God for the nice weather. Entrance fee is AUD 23.00 per adult. There are special rates for family with children as well.

If you look at the zoo’s map, the zoo can be divided into 4 sections. With the roundabout as the center landmark, the trail proposed by the zoo are according to the 4 sections as well. Start with bottom left and the move up to top left. Continue towards top right and finish at bottom right.

Inside the zoo, there are several park and garden as well suit for family picnic and activities.

Some picnic areas for family.

Before I show all the pictures that I manage to take, let me just mention that we actually used up the whole visiting hour of the zoo. We finished everything only at 4.45pm! Partly there are a lot of things to see and partly the children at times are too engrossed in certain animals that we have to spend more time. We also stopped twice for lunch and tea at the designated resting area. We packed our lunch and ate like we’re having picnic and it’s in the zoo!. How cool was that. I guess picture tells more than word and let them do they talking. I will arrange the picture according to the trail I’ve mentioned in the above paragraph.

First stop, the gorillas. One thing I like about the zoo is that you can have two options to enjoy the animals. In the wild and up, close and personal. This was taken in the wild mode.

These gorillas can at times post for you to take the picture of them.

Carp. This is the up, close and personal mode. Where they build glasses such that you can be real close to them.

Otters – up close personal mode.

Otters – Nature mode

Gibbons I

Gibbons II

Tree top apes and monkey I

Tree top apes and monkey II

We can’t snap the tiger cause there were hidden behind the trees. We can only catch a glimpse of their stripes. Too bad

Pelicans (white) and ducks (black). While taking this picture, one of the duck charged towards us and as we were about to run, it made a U turn and charge back to the pelicans and back to us and again to the pelicans. We concluded that it just want to show off his charging skills.

Bongsu the elephant

We managed to see Bongsu the elephant taking his bath.

Peacocks. There are free to roam around the zoo, which may not be a good thing. See the next picture.

Because the peacocks are free to roam, one of them somehow ended at the gorillas’ enclosure. Sensing the peacock may be invading their territory, the gorillas (one at the ground and one at the top) are in attacking mode as they kept on keeping their eye contact on the peacock.

Orang Utan

The zoo have two places to house the orang utan. Some in the open, and some in the “play house”. We caught this orang utan (in the open) sort of admiring the nice toys in the “play house” that he couldn’t enter to play but can only stare from outside through the window.

Giraffe in nature mode.

Giraffe in up close personal mode. Didn’t know that giraffe have such a long tongue.

Zebra and the ostrich. Yup, you know why the ostrich is like that. I couldn’t wait till that ostrich lift its head, so this is the best I can snap.

The next section i.e. the top left of the map are for Australian Animals.

A wallaby or wait a kangaroo….How to differentiate them? I think this is a wallaby. A sleeping on its hand wallaby.

An emu

A wombat

Koala Bear

A Giant Bird Aviary

As I looked into this “scope” I saw this (see the figure below)

Something growing from the cassowaries’ dung. It seems like the cassowaries eat this plant to survive and the plant need their dung to grow. What a nice symbiotic partners. Unfortunately the cassowaries are shy today. Didn’t see any of them.

A nice male pheasant.

We were so blessed to meet the feeding time of the kangaroos. The zoo warden allowed us to even pat and touch them as they enjoy their meal. Superb experience. Their fur is very warm and nice.

Next stop was the reptile world. I only put some reptiles. Of course there are snakes, crocodile etc. But they normally are passive and not moving. So, didn’t bother to take their pictures.

A star tortoise I think.

This chameleon pressed its face against the glass. It look so adorable that I must take its picture down. While its face is pressed against the glass, its eye followed our fingers’ movement.

Some lizard that I can’t remember its name.

Different tortoises enjoying their meal.

Next, we went to the top right of the map. Most of these animals are resting and were behind the bushes, so can’t really get their pictures.

Again we were so blessed to meet with the lion’s feeding time. The lion were sequestered to one corner while the warden placed and hid the meat for the lion to find it. After the wardens had hidden the meat, they let the lion out and boy the lions were fast to find the meat and it’s steak time!

Two giant tortoises.

A brown bear. It didn’t look that brown. Probably winter’s coming that their skin changed color as well?

The seals new home are coming soon to the zoo. Sigh… to see them means I have to come again?

The final section, the bottom right. We were pretty tired considering the time we reach this section it was about 4.15pm. I was quite excited to see the penguin but quite disappointed as there’s only ONE penguin. I guess the Melbourne Zoo is asking us to go Philip Island if you really wanna see more penguins.

One penguin.

A meerkat.

It was a tiring day but a fantastic day spent in the zoo. I was quite amazed that the children of my office mate can finish the whole zoo without much complaining about tiredness and sleepiness. They still can stand till the end. But once we went back on the train, they were sleeping like babies. LOL

The end. Posing with a statute of Peter Pan. How is he related to the zoo?

When writing technical papers and do citation, a particular phrase always make me wonder. It is the phrase “et al.” in author et al. I always thought it was from French where et al means et alliés (and allies/friends). But after asking some friends from France, they said alliés is NOT used to denote friends. But rather in the “war term”. Allies in war. So, my first assumption is wrong.

Curiosity made me dig further and I’ve finally found the origin and meaning of the word. “Et al. (et alia)” are Latin words which means “and others”. Not only that, I began to see lots of short form which I (at least for me) often use but never really know what does that mean or the origin of those words. Here I list some of them.

e.g. (exempli gratia) – for example

etc (ec cetera) – and the rest

i.e. (id est) – that is

N.B. (nota bene) – take notice

P.S. (post scriptum) – written afterward

And the highlight of all is Q.E.D. That’s what people usually write after they had proven or shown some mathematical proof. There are several version to this Q.E.D such as Questions Easily Done or Questions Easily Determined.

So,

Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstratum) – which was to be demonstrated

Now then I know……:P

After listening to a sermon from a preacher from the States saying Australian tend to shorten an English word and made it their own. The preacher was used to say “University” but in Australia, Australian would use the word “Uni”. Her statement made me realise that it’s true. There are quite a number of words that have been made short. Let me give some examples.

Mosquitoes – Mozzy

Breakfast – Brekky

Lollipop – Lollies

Australian – Oz/Aussies

Thank you – Ta

Interesting…

When I started watching F1 in the year 2001 (it so happened that the year that Malaysian have their first F1 driver, Alex Yoong), the F1 have 11 teams and 22 drivers. At the end of 2001, team Prost couldn’t sustain and  bid farewell to the F1 club.

Prost F1

However, Toyota came in and we were still at 11 teams and 22 drivers.

In 2002, team Arrows have some financial problem and they had to withdrawn at the 3 quarter of the season and after that from 2002 till 2005, we were left with 10 teams and 20 drivers.

Arrows F1

In those 4 years, private owner teams couldn’t sustain the higher and higher cost of running the F1 and hence, we have ownership changed so many times.

Jaguar changed to Red Bull in 2005.

Jaguar F1

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Red Bull F1

Jordan changed to Midland in 2005, then to Spyker in 2007 and now Force India in 2008.

Jordan F1

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Midland F1

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Spyker F1

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Force India F1

Minardi, the smallest yet the most gung-ho team and loved by everyone changed to Toro Rosso in 2006.

Minardi F1

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Toro Rosso F1

Even Sauber couldn’t sustain that they have to partner with BMW in 2006.

Sauber F1

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BMW F1

BAR as well had been absorbed into Honda in 2006.

BAR F1

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Honda F1

And on 6 May 2008, we bid farewell to Super Aguri. A young team of 2 seasons and 4 races old team. Due to some sponsor issue last season, the team couldn’t survive and laid to rest. I was quite sad that F1 again goes back to 10 teams and 20 drivers. Arigato Suzuki-san for all his effort to setup a team in 2006.

Starting from 2008 Turkish GP, we are back to 10 teams and 20 drivers. Sad….

Super Aguri F1