It could have been an explosion!!

It was at Claremont at around 6:50pm today. I finished filling up my petrol and was cleaning up the windscreen. I saw a car drove in on the other lane, I moved closer to my car to minimise the chance of being knocked down but I wasn't really worry or even looking at the car. I was moving quite slow.

Suddenly, BANG! It accelerated into the pumping station!! The station was heavily damaged and seconds later, petrol started flowing out!!!
Then the driver came out of the seemingly-brand-new car and only then realised how bad it was! She seemed devastated, so was he.

I walked towards the shop and waved at the station-keeper about the accident. By then the petrol had wet the floor and started flowing to the street.
I went into my car and drove off the danger zone. And before I drove off the station, I stopped the car on the side, took the camera out and documented the accident.

If there was some naked flame, could it exploded like in the movie? All flame came out and I flew off.... :P

www.dontclick.it

This is cool! Exploring the interface with mouse that you don't have to "click".
www.dontclick.it
Found this from OneTwenty

Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera

A camera that enables user to refocus the picture after it's taken! Don't worry about the whatever "light field" or "plenoptic" jargons, have a look at the video there and be impressed.

Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera

Airports in the morning

My housemates are out of my house. One went back to China for holiday on Friday morning and another went to Melbourne today. They both chose very healthy time to fly - 7:40am on Friday and 6:00am today. So I've been going to bed early an enjoy the early morning fresh air on the way to the airport for the past 2 days.

It's almost summer now. It's broad daylight by 5:30am! It rather strange to be driving on such a bright day and have very light traffic. W.A should have daylight saving!! Then I can play basketball or go jogging till 8pm and still see. :P

We went up

The School is regrouping and relocating postgrads students to put them into the same research group. I have been 'living' in G.01 for two year+ and we moved two floor up to 2.09 today.

pk, danno and me took the benches off the lab on Thursday and we all moved our desk and computer up today. The natural light is good in there, but it's further away from everything good - the toilet, water, and my house! But closer to the undergrads lab and tutorial room.

A cool video documenting our moving in activities is linked here for your visual pleasure. Well, we're computer vision research group, it makes sense to have this.
move_in_2.09vbr.mpg (29.5MB)

Apparently, this moving up event has been widely reported.

How to Read 12 Digit UPC Barcodes - WikiHow

This is interesting!
How to Read 12 Digit UPC Barcodes - WikiHow

CookingByNumbers.com

I always thought of using computer to do things like that. Have a record of whatever I buy and put them in fridge. Then use computer to automatically search for recipes that the ingredients I have can make.
It'll be good to also keep track of what's going to be expired so have a timeline queue of what urgently need to be consumed... Haha!!

And I found this website that does the search. :)
CookingByNumbers.com

Surprise birthday top up

From: Revolution
To: MY GMAIL ACCOUNT
Date: Nov 7, 2005 7:00 AM
Subject: Happy Birthday!

Hi Tzu Yen,

We just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a happy birthday!!!

As a small gesture we have thrown an extra $5 onto your account. Enjoy your day!

Want a FREE recharge?
Every time you refer a friend or relative who joins the Revolution you will receive a FREE $5 recharge. To start referring now, visit https://www.revtel.com.au/membersLogin.php

And remember, all Revolutionaries receive the super low standard call rates of 9.9c per thirty seconds, all day everyday!!!

Regards,
Revolution Customer Care Team

Revolution is from Vodafon. It's really good value. I recommend you to switch to it if you don't use the freecall from Optus and are not a heavy user. I get to keep my number and get $30 free credit when I switched. And they had a promotion to opt in for a $20 monthly auto recharge for at least 4 months, and get $100 top up straight away. I thought it's bloody fantastic value! $80 for $180 credit, which never expires, just has 1.5cents daily network fee, workout to be $4.50 monthly access fee.

Let me know if you want to switch, then I can refer you and get $5 free recharge. Hahaha!

Happy Birthday to me :)

Yeah! It's my birthday! I turned 26th.
My housemate, Zheng (or Leo) called me at 11 something and asked me to come back from uni to help him with his EE exam. So I came back with a little suspician as he never really called me at that time for this kind of thing, he usually just wait for me to come back, and the time was rather spot on.... Well anyway, it may just be my own thoughts. So I just came back as normal and he did have some problems for me and I helped him as usual.
Then he played a video for me to watch and I was happily watching that without having much other braincells to think about anything else... He went out of the room and suddenly a big crowd rushed into the room with candles on cake. =.=!!!

As a scout, I learned to "be prepared". I kind of think it may happen or it may not. But I was truely surprised by the number. The undergrads are all having exams so I was quite touched that they take the time out to join my birthday celebration. :)
I'm so blessed with my friends, you.

Thank you!

We had the song ceremmony, wishes, blow candles, cake cutting (not touching the bottom to avoid having green baby). Then eveyone was busy munching the delicious cake. I was requested to play the guitar and sing a song. So I did, it was a pleasure to sing a song to wish myself happy birthday and another to thanks for the friendships. After that it's all chitchatting, till almost 4am.

The song was video recorded. And I watched it the next day. It was strange that for the first time in my life, I like my own voice and guitar sound. The weird yeeeerrr feeling of listening to my own voice is not there anymore, and I actually enjoy listening to the song. :)
I think I just learnt

to appreciate and acknowledge my abilities instead of denying or being embarrassed by them.

 

Paper cut pleasure

This is a lot of fun! :)



make-a-flake

RongXin's Birthday Surprise

Rongxin's birthday.
We had a little surprise for her.

 
 

Festive season

Today is Shih Ching's birthday. We had a nice cake from Miss Maud to mark the occasion in G.01. He's 24 now, one year younger than me, for a couple of days. :P

Happy Birthday Shih Ching!

And it was Jason's Birthday last Friday.

Happy Birthday Jason!

And it's Hari Raya Puasa - Muslim festival after a month's long fasting today.

Selamat hari Raya Aidilfitri.

And it was Deepavali - Hindu "Festival of Lights" on Tuesday.

A Happy & Joyous Deepavali.

Winthrop Tower tour with LACE

Language And Cultural Exchange (LACE) is a postgraduate social group within UWA. It organises a gathering every fortnight. For this one, we went up to the highest point in UWA - the Winthrop tower.
Good view, fresh air, well deserved after a long stair-climbing exercise.
Met up with a few Chinese mates who also frequent the LACE events - 苗玺、李超、萱萱 from 贵州、哈尔滨、台湾. There are probably not many people who know their chinese names here in Perth. So, my diclosure of their identities shall have little significance.

 
Toprow are computer science building and reflecting pond taken from the tower.
Middle row are taken in Winthrop hall.
 

Melbourne Cup lunch

It's Melbourne Cup again! Our department organised a potluck lunch. I made herbal tea egg(茶叶蛋), which is well-received among the asian staffs and postgrads. Many who saw it for the first time thought it's chocolate-egg, or some kind of century-egg. Some are brave enough to try and like it, others dared not touch it. :D

It was again a good feed. :)~