double jump

Finally done with programming project yesterday, it was super stressful "orz We managed to find and correct most of the weird bugs (a lot was because I flipped the coordinate system without realizing), but ran out of time in the end. Had to hand in a not perfectly working program e_e"

With the last assignment of the semester due on Monday, it's time to think of finals! whoohoo...
Say hello to the stack of past exams that will hopefully guarantee myself an 80 once I've successfully completed them.

Macbook Air on the side for size comparison T_T"
On the bright side, I get to sleep in all morning!

Also on the bright side, good food!

Top left is a rare sighting of a good chestnut meal. Beef patty with sunny side up egg and a surprisingly good (for res standards) arugula salad *u*

The other three photos are from SiChuan Landscape (巴山蜀水), a relatively new sichuan-ese restaurant in Chinatown. The food is pretty authentic, especially the dandan noodles (lower left) and dumplings (钟水饺). They're both dimsum dishes, but they came in large portions. The tofu on the upper right was delicious, it's apparently made in the restaurant and has great texture. I'd definitely recommend this dish.

bus error

Now I see why there are signs posted around engineering common rooms reminding us to shower.
Given the choice between making my program work and showering/eating/sleeping/anything activity, I much rather make my program work.

Debugging is a nightmare.

bigger cucumber

Found two super interesting websites via TED,

88 Bar - about tech and design in China (Sarah check this out), and
The Perennial Plate - about "adventures in sustainable eating"

A video on each site especially stood out to me,

the first is a presentation about a chairty program that utilizes crowdf-unding to provide lunches to school children in rural China. The presenter frames this program in the perspective of designing for trust, which really ought to be one of the Df(x)s that we learn in ESP.
It's bit of a long video, but do watch it in full:



the second is about roof-top gardens in BeiJing and HongKong:
On and off, I would wish that I lived a far simpler life as a farmer in a beautiful rural region. Then I realize I'm far too depend on modern conveniences and would too quickly miss the vibrancy that big cities have. Otherwise I'd totally transfer to mineral and make double the salary of a civ...

Anyways, the urban rooftop garden seems to be a happy compromise between the above scenarios. Hopefully I can learn more about urban agriculture throughout my university studies and do some related work (ie. green walls) in my career.

p.s. the green wall near MedSci cafe is an amazing place to eat lunch. No fair that the artscis have the nicer buildings D:

star lake

Watched 2 films over the course of the weekend as I procrastinated from doing programming: Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Howl's Moving Castle.


This man, my gosh, is the definition of having self discipline. Slightly ironic since I watched this documentary because I didn't have enough discipline to keep working haha. But I shall learn from his example! Goal is no cellphone gaming from now until exams end, if his apprentice can make tamayaki for months, I can pay full attention in my last week of lecture >D

Oh and damn the sushi looks amazing.


Howl's Moving Castle is just beautiful, and hilarious too (calcifer!!). Sophie is insanely headstrong and stubborn haha. My revised list of top 3 Ghibli movies is as follows:

1. Princess Mononoke
2. Nausicaa tied with Totoro
3. Howl's Moving Castle

The theme is great ;_;

persian tea

I think friday nights have transformed from sgs night to eating out night. Both is good :]

Have not had Persian food for such a long time, not since middle school I think. Kebobs are still so good *u*

Although Aida's mom's spaghetti with meatballs are still the best. It was so worth trading dumplings for haha. Good ol' times~

pointers

It's gonna be a long night of FDS, whohoo.
According to the golden rules of project management, work expands to fill allocated time (y)


But first, must whine about programming!
Signs that things are very very bad:

• You don't know why your code doesn't work
• You don't know why your code works (but only sometimes)
• You change random things until it works (but only for that specific input)
• Segmentation faults

But the moment your code works, man that feeling is awesome. Then you move onto the next function and it's the same process all over again. 

shore

Daft Punk was the music choice for the long weekend :D Looking forward to the new album!

^a remix, not a leaked official song.