One of life's lessons

Sometimes, knowing the truth can make one sad...

But it's always so encouraging to know that humans have a remarkable ability to recover very quickly.

It won't be long before one is on his feet again.

:-)

Don't be a dummy, come with mummy!

Last Sunday, we (Gail and myself) went to watch Tangled with Boss and WMWMWM. It was so cute, and so happy... something expected from Disney!

Actually, I have to thank my MNO1001 lecturer and teaching team for such a rewarding experience. We had to make a video, and our video will be screened ala the oscar awards thing. And both nominees and winners get a prize.

My group's video was nominated, and the gift was very pleasant indeed. That was already more than a year ago...

Fast-forward to last Sunday, we decided to realize the value of the voucher with Disney's 50^th animation. With so much hype about it, and being the biggest budget animation to date, plus the cute characters, we were all quite excited.

Actually, the voucher was valued at $7.50, but the show on Sunday was supposed to be $9.50. Nevertheless, when I claimed the vouchers, I managed to get 4 tickets without needing to pay a single cent! Guess the vouchers actually have some protection against inflation too; each voucher guaranteeing that you'll get a FREE movie as long as it's within the expiry date and it's not a special screening. A very nice touch from Shaw theatres, definitely an extra reason for me to go back.

So much about my vouchers... Tangled is actually a very nice little animation. With lots of songs with cute lyrics that rhyme so well they don't feel lame (they actually are quite a bit lame, refer to blog title for example, but you don't feel it when watching the film).

The amount of effort they put into the animation is definitely commendable, but then again, with pretty good plot, and nice graphics, the soundtrack somehow pales in comparison to that of "How to Train Your Dragon". Quite disappointing, though I must say the latter offers a bigger room for composition, with its Irish or Norse setting and having so much legends and mythology behind vikings and all...

Maybe it's just not easy to make music for a world that's purely imagined, like what Disney always strive to achieve, the imaginary Disneyland. Music comes with culture, history, and civilisations, and it's not easy to make good, deep music for something that lacks so much depth. It's quite commendable that the music is at least pretty good, and the lyrics are entertaining.

Ultimately, good animation, makes one feel rather happy, though if you are in for the depth, and the keep-wanting-to-rewind-and-play-just-to-look-at-it-and-hear-it-again "feeling" that I can't describe, I'll still say "How to Train Your Dragon" left much more impact in me.

Mozart/Buttall - Samba...alla Turca!

Someone actually adapted this song for the wind chamber... sounds pretty cool eh?

Nikita - Betapa Hatiku

This is just so touching. Really feel that she brought up the meaning of the song...

EE3208 Speaker Design

I was stuck designing my circuit for the speaker for almost the past day or so. I wanted to simulate it with SPICE, so I used the free LTspice to simulate it.

Finding the SPICE model for the LM386 power amp wasn't hard, but wiring it up to work took me almost a day.

Later, I found my mistake.

Anyway, I needed to output 8kHz, 8bit, Mono Audio using the DAC0832. I know it's rather primitive, but this is the requirements of that project.

I read again and again through the DAC0832 user manual, but I just can't seem to understand what it's trying to say. Should I feedback, or should I not feedback. This is so confusing.

At the end, I decided to do a simple circuit, using a resistor to ground to convert the current out from the DAC0832 into a voltage, varying the resistor to get the desired output volume.

What a project.

Here's the LTspice schematic and the LM386 model. You'll have to put the model into C:\Program Files\LTC\LTspiceIV\lib\sym\Opamps to use it as a component.

lm386.asy
speaker.asc

Haha, enjoy!

Rain, and the joy it brings

The rain came this morning, had such a wonderful sleep. And even now, at night, even it didn't rain yet, the weather is already cool and comfy. I'm all prepared to snuggle into my bed and go to sleep.

But before that... Something that rang in my ear, just like that... It just came to me, and I decided to youtube it.

This is quite an unpopular song, very hard to find a nice version that appeals to me emotionally, the music, I mean. In fact, I think this is one of the only 2 versions on youtube, and the other version is from the 70s, and didn't sound very nice...



But it goes against the way I am, to put my human nature down,
And let the Spirit take control of all I do.
For when those trials come, my human nature shouts the things to do;
And God's soft prompting can be easily ignored.


I thank You Lord for the victory that growing brings,
In surrender of everything life is so worthwhile.
And I thank You Lord that when everything's put in place,
Out in front I can see Your face, and it's there You (I) belong.

New tumblr blog!

I just hopped over to tumblr. It's good, nice, and simple to use.

here's the link

http://januaryjon.tumblr.com/

Chrome running slow on windows 7

The cool new thing in town is now google wave. Problem is, it runs best only in chrome.

Another problem is, chrome runs very slow on windows 7 after a while.

I've decided to use google wave to compile a public guide on how to solve the problem, hopefully everyone else will contribute too...

Here's the link to the wave.

Netcaster crash course by Simon Lim

I usually get excited in the first lecture of a module 10 minutes into the lecure because by then I will already know that I'm in for an exciting module this semester.

I was excited the moment Simon started on the gospel today. All that I already know has never been put together so logically and simplified before...


-published from mobile device

Lighting at upper lounge

Lighting at upper lounge was bad, so I brough my lightbulb...



Well, it was rather harsh, so Thierry designed this ... :-)

-published from mobile device

Of brie and supper with Andrew

Andrew and I went shopping in cold storage at the last minute. Most of the cook food were half priced. So we bought some sausages.

Then we stumbled over the expensive cheese section, and we finally settled for Brie, being the best normal cheese in mousehunt, apart from SuperBrie+, which is not a real cheese. Also, the brie really looked and felt good, not to mention, smelled good too. Well, so here's what happen to the brie...



As you can see, there's a white layer on the brie... It's cheese mold. It's suppose to help mature the cheese... And you ARE SUPPOSED to eat that :p


-published from mobile device