Michael's Corner

BMT

2011-05-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

With all the joys of NCC, army couldn’t be that much worse – just more the same vulgarities, pushups and nonsense which I was all too used to. All I needed to do was work hard, have fun and (hopefully) get in OCS. Or so as I thought.

Physically, BMT wasn’t very demanding for me because I prepared ahead. All the PT, SOC and outfield wasn’t exactly tough. It was only the food and sleep deprivation that was a constant pain – partly because the cookhouse usually doesn’t serve enough and the training programme is packed back to back. I remember losing like 10kg in muscle and then putting on about 7kg in fat. I wonder how the propaganda video can even declare the food good?

However, I made quite some mistakes here which I shouldn’t have done.

Sticking out too early. Unlike NCC, where the nail which sticks out gets pulled higher, here the nail which sticks out gets hammered down.

The second was about safety. SAF is very safety conscious because they are awfully scared of people dropping dead or being killed in accidents, and perhaps overly so. And I discovered that a lot of things that I do are actually quite dangerous, apparently. Stuff like doing chin-ups without putting down the black sling bag that I was carrying.

But then and again, I really love some things like the community spirit in BMT. Yes, there may be some politics here and there, but by and large everyone more or less cooperates with each other.

Clock tower banner project: After Action Review

2010-01-05T08:44:00.001-08:00

Levin's description of the project explains what we did.

While it might have sounded so awesome with the circuits and complex mechanism and all, this project failure exposed some serious deficiencies in how we operated (particularly me, because I could see #1 & #2 and failed to correct them):

1. Overconfidence in designs and paper planning, which led to no test run on location – and so we missed the ledge. It’s only common sense to test something in the environment that it’s meant to be used in, but our 2 brains (who I won’t identify) over-relied on brainpower and didn’t do a test run. My failure in this was failing to convince them: since I had joined late, I didn't have much sway over them, and so it went.

2. Lousy recces and measurements led to incorrect information about the clock tower, particularly the length of the ledge protrusions. The best would be to have a physical measurement (a plumb line would be enough), then an architectural blueprint, with pixel measuring (which our 2 brains relied solely on) only as a last resort. Pixel measurement isn't very accurate; there's too much uncertainties involved in it.

3. Overly complex triggering mechanism – A much simpler electromagnetic circuit (which would be familiar to any P6 kid) would have done the job, as shown in the diagram below. My failure was in thinking of it only after the project failed.

I do hope these deficiencies will be ironed out.....

Sri Lanka - 4 months later

2009-09-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

Sri Lanka & the LTTE – 4 months after

4 months after Sri Lanka’s proclamation of the LTTE’s defeat & the death of Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the Sri Lankan government seems to be shooting itself in the foot.

Trying to detain all LTTE cadres is pointless. As with any army, the lower level cadres/troops just follow orders, its the leaders that are responsible. In any event, the LTTE is so ingrained in the population that they might as well arrest large chunks of the population – which seems quite close to what's going on in the refugee camps.

The military doesn't seem to be held accountable - international observers are prevented from inspecting. Food, water, sanitation are lacking, and many disappearances - some allegedly at the hands of soldiers - are being reported.

Detaining journalists under wartime anti-terror regulations for writing “untrue” articles about the camps is stupid. Whether the claims are true or not, by arresting them the government has lost its credibility in the court of public opinion. While I do support censoring of information that might be militarily useful to enemies, there isn't any enemies left - hostilities are over. Why are these laws not repealed?

Of course, there is President Rajapaksa’s visit to Myanmar, but that easily opens another can of worms with regards to the international scene.

It's quite simple: Piss the Tamils off enough, and this victory might just turn into another ceasefire.......

Xinjiang unrest

2009-07-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

Last year, Tibetan uprisings in Lhasa. Now, Uighur riots in Xinjiang. Quite obviously, pretending that racial tension doesn't exist isn't working.

The reasons why the Tibetans & Uighurs are angry are obvious: mass migration of Han into ethnic areas & them reaping bulk of benefits from economic development, suppression of culture & religious worship, Han control of political power, massive military presence & discrimination by the majority Han.

Unfortunately, by covering up the resentment and not addressing its root causes in the name of short term stability, the Chinese authorities are simply accumulating more long term hatred.

What the Chinese government should do is quite clear:

1. Get rid of the above root causes fueling Uighur dissatisfaction. When it concerns benefits and local political power, at least give the Uighurs an equal share of it.

2. Allow minorities more political posts with real power, not just symbolic NPC seats.

3. Increase Han understanding and acceptance of Uighur and Tibetan culture and practices. This can be easily done through national campaigns and patriotic education, both which China has much success with.

The future looks grim if we look at the former Soviet Union, which had similar but more brutal policies; these caused the many ethnic conflicts that sprung up right after the Soviet breakup. If the Chinese authorities continue on like this, Tibet and Xinjiang could one day become China's Chechnyas.

Iranian post election blues

2009-06-24T10:06:00.000-07:00

The world watches as the election saga drags on in Iran.

If anything, it destroys whatever moral authority that the authorities might claim to have and makes it look something like the Myanmar junta. The authorities could have at least saved their credibility by recounting the votes, but their refusal to recount destroys most of their credibility.

But even then, it is difficult to say who would win even if this was truly an absolutely fair contest. The reformers have the support of the more liberal urbanites, while Ahmadinejad and the conservatives have the backing of the more conservative rural people.

Now the question is, what is Iran going to end up in? There have been 3 possible outcomes for this kind of revolution in the last 50 years:

- Military coup, like what happened in 1979
- A long standing urbanite vs rural tension like what is going on in Thailand
- The regime becomes a Stalinist kind of state.

Neither is going to happen anytime soon, but given another 10-20 years this could well happen.

The presence of a nuclear program, tension with Israel and the US only adds to the complications. The prospect for military conflict looms in the background. Who knows, the regime might even try playing brinkmanship to distract the populace from the political troubles.

How then? Nobody knows for sure. Naturally the international community hopes that someone with better priorities (economy > nukes) comes up, but from the looks of it not anytime soon.

Iranian elections

2009-06-11T20:46:00.000-07:00

Now we have Mir Hossan Mousavi, said to be a reformist, vs Ahmadinejad, a ideologist. There are another 2, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezhaei, the ex IRGC chief, but these seem to be minor players.

From a Western and perhaps international standpoint, hopefully Mousavi or Karroubi wins and the ideologist rhetoric, belligerent stand and nuclear weaponeering will be reduced, and the economy will improve. As for China and Russia, its not immediately clear who they would support.

The problem is, nobody knows who is going to be elected, especially if the 2 major contenders, Ahmadinejad and Mousavi, have different power bases. Also, Mousavi and Karroubi don't exactly love the West either, as seen by their track record while in power.

The question of corruption also hangs over the election. With corruption being quite rampant in Iran, its not unlikely that someone's going to try to rig the election too.

Let's also not forget that the supreme leader, Al Khamanei isn't elected and isn't answerable to anyone.

So far, the international community has been shooting itself in the foot by using sanctions which affect everyone and not just the regime. This, in addition with historical hatred going back to colonisation and the Shah, means that Iranian attitudes towards the West may well be hostile.

Will international hopes then be justified that Iran's belligerent stance is going to decrease? Hard to say.

Sri Lanka - after the LTTE

2009-05-20T00:34:00.000-07:00

The 26 year war with the LTTE is finally over, after government forces stormed the last strip of land that the LTTE was holding.

With this, Sri Lanka is now back at the square one before the LTTE came into play. It is imperative that this does not turn into another vicious cycle where another LTTE sort of group comes into power and armed conflict rages again.

The ball is now in the Sinhalese court. They have the stop the discrimination against the minority Tamils that started the whole saga half a century back, and the first and easiest way would be ending instituitionalised discrimination - imposing meritocracy would be the best method forward.

If anything, President Mahinda would have to lead the way, and this certainly means a great change from his normally hardline stance.

Hopefully, he can pull it off well. Sri Lankans of all races have suffered tremendously from this unecessary war, and nobody wants it to happen again.

Sri Lanka & the LTTE

2009-05-05T04:32:00.000-07:00

Now the Tigers have been pushed back onto a small strip of land. No matter all their advanced weaponry and asymmetric tactics, these are generally useless once an enemy is sufficiently pissed off and determined enough to fight.

It is impossible to get your way all the time, and unfortunately Prabkharan & the LTTE leadership failed to realise that. They could have probably gotten an autonomous state if they had negotiated and /or played the media like nationalist anti-colonialist groups did in the 60s, but of course now all such debate is academic.

Neither is the Sri Lankan government playing their cards that well. They should have allowed the UN into the theatre to provide aid - this would enhance their international legitimacy as well as allow stories of atrocities of the Tigers to find their way into international media, which would disgrace the Tigers & at least disillusion some of their international supporters.

Hopefully, this unnecessary conflict can end soon.

Swine flu

2009-05-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

Maybe the Jews and Muslims were right about pigs being unclean. Pigs have been long known as places where viruses can intermingle and 'blend' to produce new mutant strains - and maybe God and Muhammad knew something that we didn't.

Clearly, our farming methods have to improve. Keeping large numbers of living organisms together in overcrowded conditions is ideal for disease transmission; that has happened in just about every pandemic from the Black Death to the Hong Kong flu.

Overpopulation might just well be the other problem.

Swimming

2009-04-25T00:21:00.000-07:00

My swimming competition ended yesterday, marking the end of 2 years of trying to swim competitively. As far as I’m concerned, competing is simply a motivation to work smarter and train harder – hoping for medals is unrealistic, having joined at such a late age.

Technique and water confidence aside, the real takeaway is in the life lessons learned. Usually, competitive sport is supposed to inculcate the determination to train and the resourcefulness to train smarter – and I’ve definitely learnt quite a lot in this respect. But as a relative outsider, I see swimming in a rather different way from the others.

Most competitive swimmers that I know started young – in primary school or earlier. Most of them come from relatively well off backgrounds and have extensive parental support – such as being fetched to and fro from trainings, as often as 6 days a week.

While a small percentage are serious and determined – and these tend to be the ones winning the medals – many seem to lack the motivation to train harder or smarter. To them, they have lost the desire to win and training has simply turned into a routine: they just do whatever the coach tells them to do and then go home after that.

At the same time, there are others who didn’t have the opportunity to swim when young who join, even if they have no chance of winning. Usually these people are from poor backgrounds, but on a whole their motivation level is much, much higher than those who started young.

After all, swimming is just another activity that one can do: This pattern of a small group of enthusiasts and the rest just going through the motions or being there for the bragging rights is, after all, common to almost any other activity.

If anything, this pattern challenges the notion that the best way to raise kids is “starting early” by loading them with all manner of stuff: it may actually hurt them by decreasing their “hunger” – essentially the motivation to learn.

Aware: the fight starts

2009-04-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

Now that more information has come to light about the intentions of the newcomers and what they do, things are starting to get heated.

The new exco seem to be in some sort of rush to cement their hold on power, with all the changing of locks, firing of staff and replacing them with their own people.

As a Christian, I'm not exactly happy with the acceptance given to homosexuals, but the new exco's intentions do not warrant the sneaky takeover, and in doing so they've lost whatever moral high ground they might have originally had.

This is especially so considering that many in the group are high fliers, and Dr Thio herself is a lawyer: they should know enough about the available channels to express their concerns, or simply just set up their own group.

The implications are rather clear: the church's reputation is going take a big hit unless some church leaders, particularly the Church of Our Saviour leaders, speak up about this and distance themselves away from such behaviour.

One can only wait and see what will happen.

Aware's change of leadership

2009-04-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

It's quite obvious that this is coordinated - it can't be that so many newcomers just turn up out of nowhere and run for exco posts.

The most troubling thing about the new exco is that they refuse to disclose any information about their agenda, instead choosing to issue out meaningless vague statements.

Whatever cause this unknown group intends to promote, it doesn't justify taking over in such a fashion. Besides, if they had something to vent, why couldn't they use dialogue and SAY it out first rather than choose such a sneaky measure? And of all things, the new exco is comprised of high flyers, who of all people should have known this fact the most.

With that, is it surprising that everyone is so suspicious of them?

Thailand: the army steps in

2009-04-19T01:35:00.000-07:00

The army has finally taken sides and started taking action to disperse red shirt protesters. Even then, it seems like the army is divided, with certain officers being quoted as facing a dilemma over whether to follow orders to quell the rebellion or not. This isn't surprising given that the red-yellow divide tends to be along socioeconomic lines; it is inevitable with any army that most of the soldiers, particularly the rank and file and junior officers, come from lower socioeconomic classes.

As said before, the army's quelling of the protests only stops the violence in the short term, and definitely doesn't solve any of the underlying issues. It only raises more questions about double standards - the PAD was able to blatantly seize various public buildings and airports in the country without any reaction from the government.

Now, the question is, what is the UDD going to do in reaction to this? They have several options besides waiting for the next elections: an underground guerrilla campaign, provoke the military to crack down and thus bring international pressure on the Thai government, or perhaps even incite a mutiny in the army. Who knows? The only thing for sure is that they will retaliate in one way or another.

Either way, the Abhisit government doesn't seem to last very long in this power play.

Thailand's red shirt revolution

2009-04-12T07:03:00.001-07:00

Now the red shirts have managed to disrupt the ASEAN summit in Pattaya, to considerable embarrassment of the government.

Not surprising, given that nothing was done to stop the PAD from seizing buildings and airports last year. The message sent to them was that blatant violence can be used to achieve their means.

This protest was inevitable anyway: there was plenty of discontent in the masses bottling up against the royalists and the elite. With little way to vent their anger, it was inevitable that it would come to this.

Now it's a question as to whether the army decides to get involved, and on who's side. If things come to a head, the power struggle between Thailand's elite and masses could well turn violent.

Either way, this problem isn't going to be solved anytime soon. And the region ends up as the losers.

North Korea's missile launch

2009-04-12T00:19:00.000-07:00

If anything, North Korea's missile aka fake satelite launch would most probably gain it more bargaining chips, since it is now one step closer to a nuke delivery system.

From the response of the international community so far, it seems to raise a few questions:

- Pyongyang claims that the purpose of the launch was for peaceful purposes - to put a satellite broadcasting revolutionary songs and whatnot (of all things). Why did the international community do nothing to blow this lousy excuse? They could have at least demanded to send observers to inspect the so called satelite, the launch or both.

- Why should Japan allow North Korea to blatantly overfly its territory with such a rocket? The next time, North Korea might well load a few WMD warheads downrange as a gift during the next test.

This looks almost exactly like what history has already taught us so many times: let a bully take an inch from other countries unhindered by the international community, and soon they'll be out to get a mile. Britain's appeasement of Hitler and America's refusal to fight so as to win in Korea and Vietnam comes to mind.

Now that North Korea has launched its rocket, the international community should try to get them where it hurts - their money supply. Much of North Korea's income is derived from sales of illegal stuff like drugs and arms, and much of it is carried by ships. Increasing naval patrols, stopping more ships going to and from North Korea in the seas around would well hinder the flow of such contraband, and not least cause them much embarrassment when their activities are brought to light.

That said, one must hope that China and Russia do more when concerning North Korea. Both would gain something big out of it - with less instability coming from North Korea, northeast China and the Russian Far East Federal District would enjoy more development. Also, China's might be able to counter the notion that it makes friends with dictators for resources, like in Darfur and certain conflict areas of the world.

Hopefully, the international community finds a way to really give North Korea a slap in the face.

Piston spudgun

2009-04-02T00:41:00.000-07:00

under construction

Newton hawkers overcharging

2009-03-20T11:25:00.001-07:00

This is one of the few times that such a case like makes it to the newspapers.

Of course, we know that this sort of things is pretty rife here: Sim Lim square, car workshops making false insurance claims, various shops all over the place, etc.

People may compare and ask why the authorities only seem to respond to tourists getting ripped off and not locals, but enough has been said on that on the blogosphere.

If this continues unabated, sooner or later Singapore is going to go down.

Why do most people trust Japanese or Swiss products and are willing to pay more for them over Chinese products? Simple. Trust. They trust that the product is built to quality standards and works. And to gain people's trust, one needs honesty. Like not substituting inferior parts or defective goods.

The same things apply to just about any other sector, and as a country even more so for Singapore. We have no resources, relatively little history, and definitely no large market like China that might attract the rest of the world. This means that the only thing that we have to justify paying more than any other regional country is in these soft values - honesty, clean government, stability and such.

Plenty of tourists come here because they want to see somewhere without the corruption and traps normally seen elsewhere around the region.

If we Singaporeans are perceived to be dishonest cheats trying to rip people off, we can soon expect us as a whole - and not just our tourist industry - to be hit big time.

The Budget

2009-01-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

This year's Budget comes amid a time of great recession. Never before has the growth forecast been revised TWICE in rapid succession before a budget announcement.

Despite that, I'm impressed by the measures put up by the Government in this year's Budget.

The Government's focus on saving jobs is a lot better than welfare schemes: it at gives people something productive to do, and more importantly, gives them a guaranteed income that they have control over. When people are on welfare, they don't spend so much, simply because they don't feel that they have the control over their cashflow. Of course, something has to be done to help those already retrenched, but schemes to help them like workplace training & allowances have already been in place for some time, so it's not worth mentioning them here.

However, it's not very clear whether this would apply to contract workers: they are the most vulnerable to job cuts, since they aren't even permanent staff. Hopefully something can be done to help them.

It's also good that the Government is also looking at the long term issues. Historically, recessions were the best times to make investment, since everything is going at pretty cheap prices.

Once the construction contracts from the boom time are completed and the construction industry gets idle, it would be a good time for the Government to use to make Singapore's infrastructure more elderly friendly.

However, I'm not so sure about having a blanket property tax rebate. Giving the rebate to landlords and encouraging them to pass it on to tenants is essentially giving the landlords money: it's highly unlikely that greedy landlords will pass the savings on, and this was pretty much the case the last few times that this was done.

As it is now, some greedy landlords are still trying to increase prices. Given this, probably a better method might be to put up some sort of rental price control - in principle restricting rental prices to a reasonable price. Landlords would have no choice but to rent out anyway, since the building can't be moved and they still have to maintain and pay property tax for the property.

Anyway, hope that this Budget helps Singapore tide over the recession.

Sri Lanka and the LTTE

2009-01-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

This destructive and unnecessary entire multi-decade long civil war is the sad result of racist discrimination and the vicious cycle that occurred after that. Sri Lanka is a lot worse off than before the crisis.

With all sorts of institutionalized discrimination against Tamils being set up by the new Sinhalese majority government upon independence, it's no surprise that the Tamils started forming political groups, which eventually formed a coalition to oppose all these changes.

When a minority is unable to get their rights through the legislative processes, they will resort to armed struggle, and that is precisely what is happening here. With nothing being gained from negotiations, a lot of Tamils have given up on politics and resorted to armed struggle. To make things worse, Vellupilai Prabkharan's LTTE took control of this by ruthlessly destroying the other groups and killing their leaders.

For a long time, it used to be like this: Sri Lankan military mounts campaign, gains back territory, then a internationally brokered ceasefire which the LTTE regroups, then one side would break the ceasefire and the LTTE would come back and conquer the territories, and then the cycle restarted. In short, a never ending vicious cycle.

From a military standpoint, the LTTE is a formidable foe for the Sri Lankan military. Having advanced weapons like thermobaric weapons and mini submersibles, and the use of unethical / unlawful tactics and methods, like hijacking commercial ships, it is no surprise that they are very capable indeed.

However, like quite a lot of other terrorist groups around, Prabkharan is playing his cards wrong. No matter what equipment they have or they carry out, there's no way that the LTTE can win militarily - it can't match the Sri Lankan armed forces if they really decide to fight them out. To add to that, the LTTE’s various atrocities against Tamil people, like killing other Tamil politicians, simply exposes him as a power hungry murderer, not a freedom fighter for the Tamil people.

The LTTE’s idea of peace negotiations as a rearming time might seem smart in the short term, but in the long term people realize that they don’t want peace and will go crush them totally at the next opportunity, like what is going on now.

The best effect that the LTTE can achieve has already been achieved: drawing the Sri Lankan government into a long drawn out guerrilla war like the Viet Cong did in the Vietnam War. However, nobody benefits anyway: it only makes Sri Lankans, regardless of race, suffer. The only person probably benefiting out of this is Prabkharan himself, relying on the bloodshed for power.

For the Sri Lankan government, they must realize that military might alone cannot solve the problem by itself, like as in previous campaigns. To end it once and for all, they must solve the root cause of the whole problem – the discrimination that the Tamils face and their poverty from all these years of violence. To do that, they would have to remove all these barriers as well as allow Tamils more participation in politics, to actually show them that politics is more effective than armed struggle. This would deprive the LTTE of whatever legitimacy it might have as freedom fighters. However, it is easier said than done.

With that, hopefully the Sri Lankan government can end this vicious cycle once and for all.

Israel, Hamas and Palestine

2008-12-28T09:18:00.000-08:00

Conflict has flared up once again along the Gaza Strip.

On one side, airstrikes. On the other side, militants and rockets.

It's pretty obvious that a lot of this is politically motivated by Israeli leaders trying to pander to the right wing vote, but votes or not, bombing Gaza on such a scale is quite a dumb move.

As I wrote about China and Tibet, brute force isn’t very effective in a counter insurgency campaign.

Even if you ignore military complications (that is another topic altogether), it's not very smart to try to totally obliterate Hamas. Hamas isn’t exactly very competent; the fact that the Israelis managed to kill so many their leaders suggests that they have penetrated their network. However, as the root cause of Hamas' existence - hate of Israeli - and the will to achieve that is still there, new groups will spring up even if Hamas is gone.

Given that, Israel should have tried to maintain the status quo. It's essentially playing mole with Hamas: wherever Hamas pops up, whack it down, but never totally kill them off. The occasional irritation that Hamas might cause this way is a lot more manageable than having some new, more competent outfit (think: another Hezbollah) spring up.

Unlike China in Tibet, Israel can’t shut off the Western media by threatening boycotts or having gangs of worked up nationalistic students cause trouble in foreign capitals, so mass media cannot be avoided.

Nothing draws reporters and works us up more than seeing innocent helpless civilians suffer. And Hamas, like any other terrorist group, loves to use innocent civilians as human shields, and get journalists to come watch them get killed in the crossfire so as to turn international opinion against their enemy.

However, even if Israel can’t use this tactic (as if they want to), they can use the media too. They should have publicized the carnage of every rocket attack and suicide bombing in the international press so as to work up international opinion, and justify having such a campaign. Even if they can’t get something as emotion wrenching as 911, Beslan or Mumbai, the subconscious effect of seeing suicide bombing / rocket victims everyday on an international audience is extremely powerful.

Sanctions of essential needs should never have been implemented. Other than driving the Palestinians into poverty, which they would naturally hate Israel for, it's impossible for Israel to regulate the smuggling - it's not possible to see from an airplane whether food or weapons is passing through a tunnel.

History has shown that when people are deprived of the opportunity to make a decent living, they get desperate enough to get into wars and revolutions - like the French, Russian, Chinese and plenty of others. What they should have done is to allow trade with the outside world - and only ban the weapons. It is well known that if people have the opportunities to earn a decent living, most of them would rather live decently in peace than go fight for whatever cause. If the Israelis would do that, the extremists would lose their "trying to help oppressed Muslims" image and be exposed as irrational warmongers.

It’s time for the Israeli right wingers to learn that overpowering response doesn’t necessarily generate the best results.

Gift giving

2008-12-14T02:08:00.000-08:00

Now, as Christmas draws near, we see the usual barrage of gift giving and crazed shopping. As retailers love to advertise, giving gifts to people are a sign of how much you value them.

But is it really necessary to give gifts to friends?

We always value the intangible things of friendship more than the tangible - a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand in their times of trouble. These are unique things about friendship that cannot be found anywhere else. If not, then it wouldn't be friendship anymore, but rather a parasitic relationship.

Opportunity cost also factors in here. Will giving an expensive gift make the person happier? Usually not, particularly in our consumer society. And for us students, should we be spending our parents' hard earned money so easily?

Given that, I don't think I'll be giving the retailers much business this Christmas.

Spudgun #1: The First Step

2008-12-02T04:50:00.000-08:00

What is a spudgun?

Essentially, a spudgun is a homemade cannon, made from readily available materials. Like just about all firearms, its purpose is accelerate a projectile down the barrel and shoot it some distance.

The Spudfiles wiki has a pretty good writeup about the different types of spudguns: http://www.spudfiles.com/spud_wiki/index.php?title=What_is_a_spudgun%3F

Here, the focus is on pneumatic spudguns, since I only build pneumatics. Reason is simple: combustions need fuel, which means paying for every shot. A pneumatic can easily use a bicycle pump and muscle power, which doesn't cost money.

While obviously much less powerful than a real gun of equivalent size, a spudgun is much more versatile: pretty much anything can be a projectile, so long as it can go down the barrel.

Of course, like all guns, spudguns can be dangerous. Like real firearms, they can also explode, not to mention the obvious danger of someone getting shot. So, safety must be observed.

The First Step

Basically, all pneumatics can be split into 3 parts: the chamber to store compressed gas, the valve, and the barrel. Most of the improvements in spudguns are in the valve anyway.

This is my first spudgun, made in May 2008. It is extremely simple, utilizing a simple ball valve. While highly inefficient, the ball valve needs no modifications, is simple to assemble and is extremely reliable. It took 15 minutes to build and about S$10.

Here is a picture of the gun:

Most of the gun was constructed from PVC plumbing fittings. It is cheap, lightweight, and easy to obtain in various sizes, making it ideal. However, due to the high pressures involved here, only high pressure rated pipe can be used. It must also be solvent welded properly. Improper construction or insufficiently pressure rated pipe runs the risk of an explosion, which can injure or even kill.

The chamber is a used 500ml PET Coke bottle. The threads used for capping the bottle were filed off and the bottle neck epoxied into the 3/4” end of a 3/4”-1/2” PVC reducer fitting. A hole was drilled at the back of the bottle and a Schrader valve attached into the hole.

The Schrader valve was taken off a used bicycle tyre and the rubber removed from it. This is because epoxy does not bond to rubber, and it would thus leak with the rubber on.

There are no aiming sights fitted because ammo and firing pressure is never constant, and thus calibrating it is pointless.

Total cost: $15. Time spent building: $15.

Pressure testing (underwater) has shown that the Coke bottle chamber can withstand at least 160 psi, according to my bicycle pump gauge. Nevertheless, as PVC will degrade in sunlight, the gun must be stored out of sunlight.

Performance wise, it wasn't very efficient, but the sheer chamber volume gave it a lot of power: an AA battery shot at 120 psi at an angle of around 80 degrees can easily go over 5 storeys, as shown in the video.

The Next Step: PVC chambers

The first spudgun, though powerful, had one problem: the bottle wasn’t specifically designed for such high pressures and I had no idea how long it could last at the high pressures that I was using at. Not worth the risk anyway.

Hence, the next step was to simply switch PVC pipe instead of a Coke bottle for a chamber.

2 such guns were made: 1 with a chamber about the same volume as the coke bottle, and another with a very small chamber.

The first one had little difference from the original, while the underpowered gun was used for teaching purposes: with such low power, there was little risk of damage if someone used it wrongly.

The coke bottle ones were then decommissioned and given to Mr Jason Chan as a teaching aid for teaching the general gas law. It essentially allows students to see for themselves what happens at high pressures.

The new US president

2008-11-14T18:58:00.000-08:00

Well, so Americans have elected Barack Obama as president. And we all know that his administration has plenty of problems inherited from the Bush administration - the economy, Iraq and Afghanistan, North Korea's nukes, bad global perception, etc.

For the US to be a global superpower, it doesn’t just need hard power – economic and military – but also soft power – that is, image, moral authority and a good international standing. Given his background, he is not likely to piss off people like the Bush administration did with some of their belligerent language and actions, so it's likely that things should improve.

However, even if we ignore any doubts about his character, there are some things beyond his control. And the problems that we see hinge on them.

One is the power structure in America. To briefly summarise it, with the tripartite power-sharing arrangement between the administration, Congress, the judiciary, and everybody jostling for their own agreements, it requires a lot of time to satisfy everyone, and consequently by the time it's approved the original initiative is usually heavily diluted. And by then it might be too late.

The other is time. There is only so much that can be accomplished in 2 presidential terms, and many of the problems that America faces are long term in nature, like the insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s unlikely that he’ll be able to finish the campaigns in his term, given the complex and long nature of such campaigns.

The economy is another. To get more jobs and make America more competitive in the long term, it means some unpopular decisions that might cost him political support. Will he be able to without alienating voters? Hopefully.

Vested interests are another. For America to achieve change for the better, sometimes Americans must be willing to sacrifice some of their vested interests for the greater good. Will Obama be able to persuade them to do so? I hope so.

The trouble is, in the cacophony of voices common to liberal democracies, people are easily distracted from doing what’s necessary. Hopefully, with his mastery of public relations, Obama can stand above the cacophony and lead.

Ultimately, the leaders that Americans elect and the results that they deliver are simply a reflection of themselves as an electorate. If they want to see change for the better, they'd better be prepared to support the right initiative and work towards it.

China and Tibet

2008-11-13T15:34:00.001-08:00

The issue of who has the legitimacy to rule Tibet has long been a thorny issue for China and Tibetans. That said, the issue goes back a long way, when the Tibetan kingdom was annexed by China a few centuries back, partially taken over by the British, and then finally invaded by China in 1950.

What is clear, though, is that Tibetans aren’t happy with the Chinese occupation. Mass migration of Han & benefits of economic development going to them, suppression of religious worship & culture, plus massive environmental pollution. Add a massive military presence & stationing of nukes in Tibet (as more than one PLA general has said).

Negotiations haven’t seemed to achieve much. Perhaps Beijing regards it only for show purposes?

Trouble is, if nothing is gained out of negotiations, the Dalai Lama could well be sidelined by those calling for an insurgency. And in this regard, it is by sheer luck that the Tibetans have been rather peaceful – perhaps a result of Buddhist culture.

But the same thing is going on in Xinjiang. And unlike the Tibetans, the Uighurs aren’t as peaceful and may turn violent. Groups like the ETIM might gain a bigger following.

And what could happen in an insurgency? One only needs to look at the former USSR for examples, like the Chechen conflict. Even if secession is achieved, ethnic conflicts like Moldova-Transnistria might still occur.

Tibet might be an inalienable part of China. However, if Beijing really wants it to be that way, they need to ensure that the Tibetans feel the same too.

Foreign scholars

2008-10-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

Foreign students studying in secondary schools and JCs on government scholarships have been, for some time, a part of our school lives, particular for people like me in so-called top schools.
Previously, not having encountered them, I believed the stereotype that they were freaks whose only purpose in life was to study and nothing else. However, after ending up in a class with 8 Chinese scholars this year, I find that contrary to the stereotype, they are very much like us – they weren’t too fond of studying and homework, and they too liked having fun and being with friends.

Personally, while I don’t hold any bias against scholars themselves, I feel there are some potential improvements that could be made to the program itself.

While I haven’t managed to find any definitive official stated aim of providing scholarships, there are some obvious advantages:

1. Increase talent, which is key in today’s knowledge driven economies
2. Increase the labour force. Singaporeans aren’t having enough babies anyway.
3. Increased international exposure and goodwill
4. Raise the level of competition and (potentially) spur the Singaporeans to work harder.
5. If these scholars are successful in the future, we hope they remember us so we can benefit from it.

However, in reality, whether these advantages are realized is questionable.

A token few would raise the competition enough to spur local students to improve, but too many scholars end up dominating & take up all the opportunities, depriving local students of the opportunity to develop as well as giving local students a “hopeless” mindset that discourages them from competing. The resulting defeatist attitude and sentiment that the system favours foreigners over Singaporeans isn’t good for national unity.

The best way to counter the latter would be some sort of measures to allow the weaker Singaporeans the opportunity to get a leg up. By this, I think that motivation is the key factor – once interests can be linked to academics, motivation is a whole lot easier and performance would improve.

According to the scholars I know, the recruitment system for the majority of scholars is through successive rounds of academic tests – unless they have some special sporting talent or ability. Interestingly, there isn’t much emphasis on assessing the character here. This isn’t good – a few bad hats to a give the whole lot a bad reputation, and we should be minimising that. Perhaps running interviews, camps, etc. as part of the selection process would help greatly.

This, combined with the fact that schools often place scholars in the same classes (i.e. creating “enclaves”), limit international exposure and goodwill. What should we do to combat this? First, start selecting scholars based on character also. Second, combat negative stereotypes & encourage interaction between both sides.

The scholarship program is a potential winner, if run properly. Hopefully improvements can be done to the programme to let it realize its true potential.

Hello world!

2008-09-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at a blog in 4 years, after having tried - and finding myself too lazy to blog.

My name is Michael Ong. I live in Singapore, at the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia, somewhere in Southeast Asia. I'm now currently studying in Anglo Chinese School (Independent), a junior college (i.e. high school) doing the IB programme. Like most other students my age, I intend to enroll in a university soon after graduating and hopefully get a scholarship too, though I will have to do my national service (conscription term) before that.

I suppose I'm not a very conventional person. I just don't seem to conform to most stereotypes about people (e.g. stereotypes like "nerd", "jock", "bimbo" etc).

I used to be a member of the air cadet corps in my school (here, units / squadrons are based on schools) for the last few years. Well, every year, appointments are given to the cohort of senior cadets to run the unit. Unlike most cadets, I chose not to aim for a high appointment, but rather decided to take part in the International Air Cadet Exchange and the Basic Diving course; I learned a lot more from both than getting any high appointment. At the same time, what I did as a senior was unusual in itself - I asked for, and basically got the higher ups to let me teach junior cadets aviation-related science so that they could understand more about airplanes.

Now, I'm currently in the swimming team and the science research club of my school - just following my other interests in sports in general as well as both the hard sciences and social sciences - modern international history, political science and sociology.

Given that, it seems only natural that this blog functions both as an outlet for my views on current issues as well as somewhere to showcase science stuff. The rationale is simple - through interacting with one another, we learn from one another - be it in political viewpoints or building a better mousetrap.

Also, everybody started out a newbie at some time or another. So have I, even though I am only starting to, as Isaac Newton said, discover the vast world beyond. Initially, I had trouble understanding all the technical terms, jargon and stuff and had to rely on the Internet and a multitude of kind forum posters and moderators to get answers (a big thanks to them). Hopefully, this blog can do the same for others in the same situation.

Seems a bit weird considering that this blog is functions both a an outlet for showcase of science stuff, but I never exactly conformed with the norm here, which is that both are generally incompatible and separate. And, after all, in the real world, both come together at some point or another. Note, this isn't a result of TOK or any of those nice sounding acronyms from IB, but simple common sense.

Hope everyone can connect to this blog in one way or another.

http://michaelsworkshop.blogspot.com.

Michael Ong

17 September 2008

Catamaran

2008-05-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

My friend & I built one for a school competition. The objective was to design & build a boat that could sail the fastest, with the only rule being that it could have a maximum sail area of 1 A4 size sheet of paper.

As we weren’t told what the competition rules & conditions (especially wind) were, we could only assume a straight line path and little or no wind. Thus, we couldn't optimise the boat much other than minimise weight.

We used a catamaran design because catamarans has a much lesser risk of capsizing than monohulls and thus doesn’t need to be ballasted or widened, both which reduce speed. Wikipedia explains why.

The catamaran hulls were built from flexible Tamiya PVC sheet. We cut the shapes out, and joined 2 such shapes together to form each hull. Joining the hull together was a framework of ice cream sticks. We forgot a keel, though.

The sail was cut out from the school magazine. Holes were cut out and light paper “doors” were pasted over them, similar in concept to a check valve. This is to reduce the effect of a headwind on the boat, which would make the boat go backwards.

Total cost: 2 hours of work and $15.

Our competitors had rather different ideas. One also built a crude catamaran – using 2 bottles for the hulls and a piece of Styrofoam linking them together. Another simply used a huge piece of Styrofoam as the hull and a piece of corrugated plastic for the keel. Yet another used plastic wrap and a wire framework, which subsequently sank.

We won, though we could have been a lot faster if we had put a keel. The wind kept on changing direction, and with it our boat.