A Rough Time

Sorry to everyone if I am behaving unlike myself these few days and in days to come. I'm going through a pretty rough period right now.

Google Video's Back Again

Google Video features are a bit rare on my blogs these days, simply because I'm no longer actively searching for funny videos. But well, here's one to break the hiatus. I had came across it long ago, but didn't find a chance to put up. But since now Microsoft Vista is out, I suppose this can worth some laughs.

The Importance of Bra-Ket

The above image shows a bra vector, as opposed to the ket vector (which points to the right). These two are notations commonly used in quantum mechanics, and they are called bra-ket notation, invented by Paul Dirac.

In today's QM2 tutorial...

"You're a man, so it's important to know what's inside the bra." - Prof Berthold-Georg Englert

... to illustrate the importance of the exact notations inside the bra vector. Hmm...

My Bible on Open Quantum Systems

The Theory of Open Quantum Systems by Breuer and Petruccione. The basis of my SP3173. My book of the semester. The focus of my mind and time.

...

My preciousss...

NUS Appreciation Semester

As I understand more about ANU, my exchange university, I begin to appreciate many things I've taken for granted in NUS, including but not limited to:

Campus-wide wireless
From my understanding, ANU only has wireless in select areas like the library, and I do wonder the connection speed...

Free Internet access
The days of finding a LAN port and enjoying high-speed Internet access will be over. Firstly, I'm not sure if I can find LAN ports just anywhere in the campus. Well, there's LAN in the hostel room, but secondly, Internet costs 7 cents per megabyte. So don't expect me to be on MSN or uploading photos online frequently.

Food
Now I finally understand the ramen culture often depicted in PHD comic strips, such as the one below.

There's of course hall catering if I opt for it, but they're not cheap. The cheapest food outlets there are cafeterias. Anything cheaper, I will have to cook it myself.

Hostel
Well, of course I have to stay in hostel. And naturally, I do expect them to be more expensive than NUS's hostels. But three times more? Or five times more for those with meals? Hmm... that's way beyond my expectations, really.

I think I shall have to enjoy NUS while I can.

The Science of Procrastination

There's a new post in the Boson on procrastination... stop procrastinating and read it now!

Timetable for Semester 4

This is my finalised timetable:



And invisible on it, this time, is the flexible lab periods of PC2193 Experimental Physics 1. And of course, the officially-8-but-unofficially-∞ hours a week of revision for my ISM.

The Theory of Open Quantum Systems

The title is exactly the title of my SP3173 Independent Study Module (ISM), or I should now formally call, SP3173 The Theory of Open Quantum Systems. It is a newly-designed ISM (as opposed to a ride-on ISM, in which the student will use the ISM as some sort of wildcard for any existing module) under Dr Yeo Ye.

The module follows a book of the same name which I have to read up and discuss with him every Saturday afternoon. As the book claims to "provide a self-contained presentation", the first chapter starts off with probability theory (the axioms and the probability sets and such) which is, admittedly, a bit mind-boggling at the moment. I do hope that these hardcore mathematics stuff will fade off soon enough, or else there'll be hell for me to endure.

Nuclear Power in Question

The Feynman Boson has a new article that will make anti-nuclear advocates happy.

Free Will (Part III)

The third part of my free will ramblings is up on The Feynman Boson. Yeah, I know... it's loooooong overdue...

Security Hole in Acer Laptops?

Someone has discovered a potentially hazardous code in Acer laptops, which allows a website to execute certain commands to Windows. Right now, it doesn't seem dangerous yet, and I doubt it's gonna cause much of a problem (or else, Acer laptops would be crashing all over the place by now).

But still, it's something interesting to note. (News gotten via Slashdot.)

Here We Go... Again

This is my timetable prior to tutorial/lab allocations. My two arts module should consume some tutorial slots, so will my two physics modules, PC3130 and PC3232. As for the other seemingly empty modules, PC3173 and PC2193, they will not appear in the timetable, but it's up to me to do them while I'm free.

The first is an ISM, which should be eating up nearly all the white spaces you see on that timetable. The second is an experiment module. There's plenty of experiments to do and lab hours to clock, but since it is flexible, it doesn't not occupy any timetable slots.

So whoever says that I got a slack timetable ought to bang his head on a rock. Things are not always what they appear to be...

Movie Review: Curse of the Golden Flower

Yup, new post. Click here please.