Arieon the White Goat

Research Update (October-December 2009)

mauriceling@acm.org — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:16:21 GMT

1. BeSSY - Formally Specifying the Behaviours of Software Components
Python list and dictionary data structure specification using BeSSY is completed. Currently, the plan is to specify relational operations in BeSSY.

2. COPADS - Collection of Python Algorithms and Data Structures
Published a code manuscript, "Ling, MHT. 2009. Ten Z-Tests Routines from Gopal Kanji's 100 Statistical Tests. The Python Papers Source Codes 1:5".

3. CyNote - Cyber Laboratory Notebook for Biologists and Bioinformaticists
Statistical functions to calculate linear regression, 2x2 and 2xC contingency tables for version 1.3.

An analysis of the conformance to 21 CFR Part 11 is completed – Part B, Controls for electronic records, is conformant. Currently, working to ensure Part C, Controls for identification codes/password, conformance.

4. The Face of LUCA
Published our previous work on finding invariant genes in the mouse liver, “Chia, CY, Lim, CWX, Leong, WT, Ling, MHT. 2009. High Expression Stability of Microtubule Affinity Regulating Kinase 3 (MARK3) Makes It a Reliable Reference Gene. To appear in IUBMB Life.”

The work on bacterial adaptation has been on-going for 70 passages with more than 3000 spectrophotometric readings and regular glycerol stocks for long-term storage. It is currently taking a recess to analyse the results obtained so far for a technical report.

5. HygDAS - Hypergraph Database Management System
Lester had just started on this project for bacterial genomics. Currently, working on defining a initial set of graph operations for implementation.

6. Muscorian - Mining Biomedical Literature for Protein-Protein Interactions
Our paper presented in the 9th InCoB had been published, “Kuo, CJ, Ling, MHT, Lin, KT, Hsu, CN. 2009. BIOADI: A Machine Learning Approach to Identify Abbreviations and Definitions in Biological Literature. BMC Bioinformatics 10(Suppl 15):S7.”

A review article entitled “Biomedical Literature Analysis: Current State and Challenges”had been accepted for publications as a book chapter in Columbus, Frank (ed). Text Mining: Software, Applications and Implications. Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Presented a technical report in BioCreative II.5 workshop, “Kuo, CJ, Ling, MHT, Hsu, CN. 2009. Applying lazy local learning in BCII.5 article categorization task. BioCreative II.5 Workshop Special Session on Digital Annotations. Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncologicas, Spain. 7-9 October 2009.”

The following codes had been re-factored:
1. Use BioPython to download citations from PubMed
2. Re-factor database to store PubMed citations
3. Use BioPython to parse PubMed citations for entry into database.

Currently, working to improve entity name recognition.

7. OpenDWS - Open Data Warehousing Suite
Preliminary CUI shell is completed.

Next steps are to implement an ACM XMLRPC server, complete full circuit of operations from CUI to ACM and database, and to implement kernel logging procedures.

Reflections: I am surprised that so much can be done even though I am teaching 25 hours per week - guess I am given the privilege to say that it is exhausting. The good thing is that I am down to about 16 hours next term so that should give me more time to prepare a few more manuscripts for submission.

Enough, I

mauriceling@acm.org — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:11:55 GMT

In a primary 3 Chinese revision class, I asked "what does it mean by 'not enough'?" (什么是‘不够’？） That afternoon on reflection - I knew that my question was not really what is 'not enough' but the real question in my mind is... What is enough?... What is enough time? What is enough pocket money? What is enough fun? What is enough work?... "What is enough?" is my main question.

Two decades later, I find myself asking the same question... What is enough? What is not enough? What is more than enough?

I am still unable to answer...

The university hierarchy

mauriceling@acm.org — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:08:36 GMT

Courtesy of http://www.tlucretius.net/Sophie/Funnies/Hierarchy.html

The Dean
Leaps tall buildings in a single bound
Is more powerful than a locomotive
Is faster than a speeding bullet
Walks on water
Gives policy to God

The Department Head
Leaps short buildings in a single bound
Is more powerful than a switch engine
Is just as fast as a speeding bullet
Walks on water if sea is calm
Talks with God

Professor
Leaps short buildings with a running start and favourable winds
Is almost as powerful as a switch engine
Is faster than a speeding BB
Walks on water in an indoor swimming pool
Talks with God if special request is approved

Associate Professor
Barely clears a Quonset hut
Loses tug of war with locomotive
Can fire a speeding bullet
Swims well
Is occasionally addressed by God

Assistant Professor
Makes high marks on the walls when trying to leap tall buildings
Is run over by locomotives
Can sometimes handle a gun without inflicting self-injury
Talks to animals

Graduate Student
Runs into buildings
Recognizes locomotives two out of three times
Is not issued ammunition
Can stay afloat with a life jacket
Talks to walls

Undergraduate Student
Falls over doorstep when trying to enter building
Says look at the choo-choo
Wets himself with a water pistol
Plays in mud puddles
Mumbles to himself

Department Secretary
Lifts buildings and walks under them
Kicks locomotives off the tracks
Catches speeding bullets in her teeth and eats them
Freezes water with a single glance
Is God.

Research Update (June-September 2009)

mauriceling@acm.org — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:00:43 GMT

1. BeSSY - Formally Specifying the Behaviours of Software Components
Currently, I've drafted the syntax for BeSSY. The next step is to use BeSSY to specify a couple of Python codes to gauge its usability.

2. COPADS - Collection of Python Algorithms and Data Structures
Published a code manuscript, "Ling, MHT. 2009. Compendium of Distributions, I: Beta, Binomial, Chi-Square, F, Gamma, Geometric, Poisson, Student's t, and Uniform. The Python Papers Source Codes 1:4" and another manuscript on Z-tests in review.

The focus for the next 3 months is to implement t-test routines.

3. CyNote - Cyber Laboratory Notebook for Biologists and Bioinformaticists
Versions 1.0 to 1.1 had a cumulative total of about 300 downloads from SourceForge, among them is Jeremy Chien fron Mayo Clinic, who had also given me some valuable comments on the system. A Google Group had been created (http://groups.google.com/group/cynote).

Nine features had been added to CyNote (Version 1.0.1 to 1.2, http://cynote.sourceforge.net/features.html) in the last quarter. I am currently in the process of doing another survey to gather directions for the next phase of development. Preliminary result shows that statistical analyses is a hot request.

Hence, the next quarter will focus on linking Z-tests and t-tests from COPADS into CyNote.

4. The Face of LUCA
My current focus in this project is on finding invariantly expressed genes and bacterial adaptation.

I've mentored a team of 3 students on finding invariantly expressed genes in the mouse liver, and resulted in a technical report, "Chia, CY, Lim, CWX, Leong, WT, Ling, MHT. 2009. Identification of Transcriptional Invariant Genes in Mouse Liver from Microarray Data. Proceedings of the 15th Youth Science Conference. Singapore."

The work on bacterial adaptation is on-going.

5. HygDAS - Hypergraph Database Management System
Initial work was carried out by Cara Montgomery on constructing a graph-based bacterial omics database and we realized quite a number of issues. One of them is the inability of Python's anydbm module to accept a dictionary as values; hence, we wrapped marshal functionality onto anydbm (calling it marshaldbm) and managed to get Dijkstra's algorithm working on marshaldbm.

The next step is to think about how to implement the graph and its indexes.

6. Muscorian - Mining Biomedical Literature for Protein-Protein Interactions
Muscorian has completed the initial prototype stage and is undergoing database and code re-factoring for better organization. At the same time, some of the structural and technical problems is being ironed out.

Presented the manuscript "Kuo, CJ, Ling, MHT, Lin, KT, Hsu, CN. 2009. BIOADI: A Machine Learning Approach to Identify Abbreviations and Definitions in Biological Literature." in the 9th International Conference on Bioinformatics. This is a step towards gene name normalization. In addition, we identified about 1.7 million unique long form / abbreviations pairs in the entire PubMed with 95.86% precision and 89.9% recall at an average computational speed of 10.2 seconds per thousand abstracts.

The next step is to focus of code re-factoring and collecting corpora for testing.

7. OpenDWS - Open Data Warehousing Suite
Michael and myself had met up regularly to work on OpenDWS. I am pleased to say that we have the Data Access Layer talking to the underlying databases and responding to the Kernel.

The next step by Michael is connecting Analysis Cartridge Manager and the User Interface to the Kernel whereas for me, I will be looking at abstracting SQL select statement so that it can run of different databases.

Reflection: A lot of things had happened in the preceeding quarter and I am beginning to see some cross-fostering of project ideas although I have to admit that parts of it is not progressing at the speed that I wish. Nevertheless, I had learnt a lot from my work in these projects despite at the cost of a few more silvers. Perhaps I have to agree that there are certain aspects that requires time and space to unfold itself. I think I will have to spend some time patching up and clearing obvious backlogs (such as re-factoring of Muscorian) before I can really move ahead.

Movie review: Transformers - Revenge of the fallen

mauriceling@acm.org — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:04:24 GMT

Transformers is a very important part of my childhood - with the Volkswagon beetle (Bumblebee), Wheelock, Soundwave and so on. Of course, I could never understand how Megatron (being the same size as Soundwave) can transform into a pistol that Soundwave can fire with. Nevertheless, let's cast all these aside and look at this movie with its prequel.

Yes, this movie has more action scenes and robot fighting scenes than the first movie but I must say, I am not too sure what I am watching in the mid-way. It looks a bit like The Mummy Return (finding the Tome of the Primes in Egypt), StarGate (travelling back to ancient Egypt) and Meet the Fockers (multiple scenes of dogs fucking and I can do without a leg-humping robot).

The plot setting is also highly cliche - a piece of relic left from an incident in the past bring back the same old problem with interest. I thought I saw that in Species II?

The entire plot is almost predictable. I did not feel too sad by Megatron impaling Optimus Prime from the back (no pun intended) for I know Optimus Prime will rise again. Perhaps bringing other "Primes" from the cartoon like Ultra Magnus or Rodimus Prime will be better, although I must say that I am surprised that the way to resurrect Optimus Prime is to stab him in the heart again - talking about heartaches.

Hence, plot-wise, it doesn't work for me. Action-wise, yes.

Collection of FaceBook "Personality" Quizzes... Can anyone see a trend?

mauriceling@acm.org — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:23:28 GMT

Which Three Kingdom personality are you? quiz and the result is Zhuge Liang.
You are seen by your peers as someone who is highly intelligent. You possess great mental agility and an acute mind. However, you lack emotion and may sometimes be viewed as elitist and reclusive. You should spend more time with your close ones.

Which Melbourne suburb do you belong in? with the result Eltham.
You belong in Eltham! One of the greener suburbs in Melbourne, eltham is known for its tree-filled, bushy atmosphere. You live a modest yet comfortable life. The area is peaceful and a nice place to live. Your weekends will probably involve little league sports, coffees with friends, and walking the dog.

What epic warrior do you unleash? with the result Katsumoto.
When you are a samurai you are one with your sword making you a leathal weapon with the passion and dedication to achieve perfection in anything you do, especially combat. When your a samurai leader like Katsumoto your in a league of your own respected as a god! And a god you are when you unleash the inner warrior going through enemys like a thirsty blood hungry blade!

What drug are you most like? with the result Cocaine.
You are Cocaine. Bright, seductive and confident- you know what you like and how to get it. Admittedly you're on the arrogant side and not easy for everyone to be around but you don't want to spend your time with just anyone anyways. What you lack in compassion you make up for with energy, drive and wit. I would be very, very surprised if you had issues getting laid. Consider a career as a CEO or a serial killer, maybe both.

Which Transformer are you? with the result Shockwave.
You are Megatron's cold, calculating second-in-command! You take emotions completely out of the picture and base your decisions on pure, sweet logic. Even though you know that you could take Megatron on 1-on-1, you know that there will always be some traitor (Starscream) waiting to stab you in the back once you had power. So, logically, you keep your current position of almost-absolute power... for now..

What wine are you? quiz and the result is Merlot
You blend in with most situations. You are popular, not heavily opinionated and get along with most people. You have a calm personality, are easy going and have many friends.

What is Your Inner Self? with the result A Moonlike Person.
You hide your emotion sometimes .You are a moon type of person. You tend to be the quiet type or in contrast, you are happy but sometimes you act it out in order for you to no burden your friends with your problems. You've faced some problems in your life. Your heart has dealt blows before. You tend to think about things alot more than other people. And you may get annoyed with people who act out without thinking about what would happen later.You are also the type of person that others often come to you with their problems because you've been through plenty, and you are very understanding. Though you sometimes feel lonely. Your demeanor is usually chill, and relaxed.You usually are logical, and rely alot on facts and information on decisions. You often keep things to yourself. This is just one side of you, and you have different faces in different situations and environments, just like the moon has phases. Sorry if this is incorrect, but still, I would like to have comments, please rate it! and if you like, try to get your friends to take the quiz also! please try to send it to as many people as you want.

What fruit are you? quiz and the result is Orange
You are really cute! You are sweet, but can sometimes be sour! You have a thick outside layer because you don't let people in easily, because you have a hard time trusting them; but when they do get close they realize your the best fruit of them all. ;)

What kind of storm are you? with the result Tornado.
You are a tornado, you can appear unthreatening at first but have the tendency to touch down and become a monster! You take pride in your unpredictability, love how people chase you with video cameras, and you hate basements.

Whats your superpower? quiz and the result is Fire.
You are a leader, and have the strengh to lead. People look up to you for protection and they seem to respect you. You have the abiblty to throw fire at your enemies and protect the people that you care about. But this power can be a burden if you don't know how to use it.

What species of pathogenic bacteria are you? quiz and the result is Helicobacter pylori!
Determined, inventive, spontaneous...you are Helicobacter pylori! You are the causative agent of ulcers, but for a long time nobody believed you. To prove it to them all, Australian physician Barry Marshall actually drank a beaker of H. pylori. He became ill very quickly. But you don't let those nay-sayers get you down...or the highly acidic environment found in the stomach, for that matter. You just secrete urease and ammonia to protect yourself from all that gastric acid. You're always finding creative solutions to your problems.

What Medical Laboratory are you? quiz and the result is Molecular
You love tiny details in life and sometime the very small ones. You like to know everything, so you read a lot and watch tv. You love to have duplicates of everything like in Molecular

Which SP CLS lecturer are you? quiz and the result is Maurice Ling
You love hanging out with students for some reason, but that somehow makes the students like you (and makes your lectures easier). You love hitting the gyms in your free time. Makes you buffed up. You hate losing the fun in stuff that you do. And did I mention programming too?

Which Super-Villain Are You? quiz and the result is Doc Ock!
You are a person of science. You like to make new inventions and improve on technology. You once used your knowledge for the good of mankind, but now it seems that your technology has consumed you. People have called you an outcast, forcing you to steal machinary for new research. One day, you'll have the power of the sun in the palm of your hands!

Are You A Jedi Or A Sith? quiz and the result is Sith.
You are an evil sith. You are very powerful and a big threat to the Jedi's. The power of the dark side flotes in you, if someone gets in your way you will just choak them or give them the sith lightning with your dark force powers. But remember the Sith's allways betray one and another!

What Body Part Would You Be? quiz and the result is The Brain.
You control the body and always need to know what's best to do. Good listening is vital to play your part correctly, listen to everyone and make sure you make your decisions well.

What god are you? quiz and the result is Satan.
you are the god of gods... you can fuck people over for eternity at a single thought... In every city under the sun my name was the axis of the educational circle of religion, arts and philosophy. Had it not been for me, no temples would have been built, no towers or palaces would have been erected. I am the courage that creates resolution in man...I am the source that provokes originality of thought...I am the hand that moves man's hand...I am Satan everlasting I am the builder of convents and monasteries upon the foundation of fear. I build wine shops and wicked housed upon the foundations of lust and self-gratification. If I cease to exist, fear and enjoyment will be abolished from the world, and through their disappearance, desires and hopes will cease to exist in the human heart. Life will become empty and cold, like a harp with broken wings. I am Satan everlasting.

What type of vampire are you ? quiz and the result is God.
You are the almighty you have the powers of the world and you know it, you are strong and you make sure everyone knows your a good leader and have great followers.

What dark creature are you? quiz and the result is Vampire.
You seem sad allot you drift to corners solitude is the thing you crave most. (ha ha) People don't realize how dangerous you really are. Not that you seem all sunshine and happiness by any means just that they think you're faking... How annoying. You do have and aura that makes people slightly adverse to wanting your company but they are also curious. You could completely mess with their minds if you wanted to but you don't...usually.

What Kind of Animal Would You Be? quiz and the result is You are a gorilla!
Majestic and a quiet ruler of the jungle, gorillas like community and family. They are fiercely protective of their loved ones and are fairly shy. They love to eat and are very tactile. However, if a gorilla is provoked, he or she will fiercely defend themselves and those close to them.

What is your inner demon? quiz and the result is Chaos.
one of the most powerful demon in existence, Chaos's body itself is made from corrupted energy. his energy source is evil, chaos, corruption...everything negative. the more evil in the world, the stronger he is. however, Chaos is a demon who chose to fight for the good side, which makes him a dreaded opponent to any evil being, as the stronger that being is, the stronger Chaos will be. his abilities include healing himself and others from any and all ailments( an injury or a disease is corruption to a body, therefore he can absorb it), flight at incredible speeds, and energy manipulation. his greatest attack is the chaotic finale, an incredibly powerful dark assault using his chaos blade that even the strongest of opponents dread and succumb to.

What does your mind look like? quiz and the result is Ice & Snow.
Your mind is like Ice & Snow. You like your life to be simple and try to have view over every corner before deciding your direction. You try to play it safe, but somehow adventures frequently sneak up on you. You are a good friend, but don't like to be around too many people. You have great respect for nature and dream about faraway places, but prefer travelling alone or in a small group of your closest ones.

Which Planet Do You Come From? with the result Zeta Reticuli.
Located in the constellation Reticulum, about 36 lightyears from Earth, Zeta Reticuli beings are also referred to as the "Grey" aliens. These are the ones reknowned for human abduction and genetic research. They have a reputation for being devoid of emotion, extremely analytical problem solvers. If you are a Zetan on Earth at this time, do not despair, you are here to explore emotion and the complexity of love, in order to help your own race expand it's awareness and consciousness. Busy yourself working on love, forgiveness, and when you have accomplished this go out into the world and spread these messages in order to help your brothers and sisters awaken to the Love within all creatures..

Which of your Chakras is most open? with the result Crown.
The Crown Chakra represents wisdom, and feeling at one with the world. You are mindful of the environment, and intouch with your spirituality. You're wise, and at times offer valuable advice to those around you. Be careful of intellectualizing things, and ignoring your body's needs in favour of their spiritual needs..

What biologist are you? quiz and the result is Watson & Crick
You like to solve the practical part of the experiments. Mostly you’re interested in the molecular mechanisms underlying all biological processes. You think that the living world functions essentially like a clockwork. One day we will figure out the function of all its parts and the mystery of life will finally be solved. But you also know that the machinery is so incredibly complicated that we will not run out of work very soon!

人滩

mauriceling@acm.org — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:10:16 GMT

旷海有波涛
千年见今朝
岁月飘渺间
人生多少篇

常见人云步海边
举指沙田云语言
似机遇语录
欲长年可见
沧海水烈
日洗磨灭

百年之体
千载何知
波卷滩沙
人忘沙留

Preliminary research directions

mauriceling@acm.org — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:16:51 GMT

After a little more than a year of full time employment and thinking about the general research direction that I am aiming for in life, I am still trying to answer my own question. The merger of computer science, statistics/mathematics and biology has always been my interest and I do consider a large scope of cross-fostering within these disciplines.

Originally, I had listed 11 projects in my research portfolio but had collapsed them to just 7 over the last 2 months as some of the original projects can be sub-setted into others. Even though more compaction can be done, I will prefer to leave it as it is now.

What is the theme of it all? As what Michael said, the dominating theme seems to be knowledge configuration and utilization. All my projects revolve one way or another around putting some order into information chaos. The projects I have go into developing the framework of this ambitious plan of better information retrieval, or to try out some methods I think will enable that efficient retrieval.

CyNote - ordering and filing routine research data, as well as a potential interface to link up systems.

Muscorian - putting structure into biomedical text to extract information.

OpenDWS - a thick overlay of plug-in-able analysis tools to federate databases.

HygDAS - means to organize highly dimensional data for storage and retrieval.

COPADS - synergistic collection of algorithms and data structures to feed my projects.

BeSSY - method to bring clarity to each project and component by defining behaviour (what each component is suppose to do) and interfaces (how these components can be connected).

LUCA - the application aspect of it all, to answer the biggest and most innocent question in life - where did we come from? As Winston Churchill said "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see". This is the only project that I have that looks back. By looking back, I take reference to organize forward.

Book of Quotations (VII)

mauriceling@acm.org — Sun, 24 May 2009 09:47:06 GMT

Fairness is not a design principle of our creator(s)... That's life.

-- Maurice Ling

The Balance Un-Tipped

mauriceling@acm.org — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:30:42 GMT

Two days to the South
I looked myself in the path
It seems the winds had swept
A mixed thought I thought the sand had kept

Warm rays beat the ground
Words around
Lighting glows I found
Boy, in this, can I drown

Why had I walked from this rivers
Of the pleasure it givers
The jot of hot sun delivers
With moans too, that grievers

Stacks of words in a year
For the work I can hold dear
Seen by flickerness of the wind
it may all be an unfulfilled dream

Packaged thoughts
Pain and worry
Use the line
All these game I sight
I wonder where I can light
Admist the blight

Yet yearning
The excitement forthcoming
In this seemingly homecoming
How can I be receiving
With the balance lie untipping

-- 09/04/09

Book of Quotation (VI)

mauriceling@acm.org — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:05:31 GMT

Permanent head damage is not the result of a PhD but the cause of.

-- Maurice Ling

Luck...

mauriceling@acm.org — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:00:52 GMT

Luck... a word invented to give people false hopes and screw up their minds.

Luck is not something given freely. Real luck is backed by hours of hard work. As Donald J. Trump puts it "The more I work, the luckier I get."

Legendary violinist Issac Stern was once confronted by a middle-aged lady after a concert. She gushed, "Oh, I'd give my life to play like you!" "Lady," said Stern acidly, "that I did!"

A person has to be tested time and again for increasingly bigger tasks. The initial tasks are long and small yet it takes effort before bigger tasks are given. When the tasks gets big enough, others calls it luck. Behind that is hours of grinding. Like when a space shuttle was launched, most of its fuel were used in the first 1000km to escape gravitational pull and the last 20% were used to course through a million kilometres of space.

I once read a story about Picasso which I cannot confirm it to be true. Anyway, one day, Picasso was approached by an old lady in a bazaar. The old lady requested Picasso to sketch her something. Picasso took out a small piece of paper, scribbled something, passed to the lady and said "This should worth about a million dollars." The lady was shocked and said "but you only took 30 seconds to draw this." Picasso said "It took me 30 years to be able to draw this in 30 seconds."

2 truths about tertiary education

mauriceling@acm.org — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:54:25 GMT

1. Nobody can stop your learning, only you can.

By the time any person comes into tertiary education, he/she will have learnt how to read. It is no different from reading newspapers. Yes, granted that some materials will be inaccessible to the uninitiated but you don't have to start with the toughest materials. Start with prescribed textbooks - they are carefully selected and ease of use is always a criteria. Once foundation is built and firmed, more difficult materials can be within reach. Hence, if students don't learn, it is themselves who refuse to learn.

2. The only thing a lecturer can do to the grade is a partial control of the mean, students have total control over the standard deviation.

It is interesting that many students blame everyone for their grades but the fact is, the students themselves control most of their grades. Yes, a difficult assignment or exam can lower the average marks but no lecturer can determine how each student perform. By extension, no lecturer can control the standard deviation. In fact, because individual marks cannot be controlled, the mean or cohort average can only be partially controlled by the ease or difficulty of the paper. A high-performing student will still be in the top percentile of the cohort regardless of how difficult the exam or assignment may be.

Looking back.... 15 years... where did I start...

mauriceling@acm.org — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:50:53 GMT

While chatting to Jeff online on the last day of 2008, we re-visited the topic of interests and being normal...

I don't think I'm ever normal. I have always follow my interest.... Although my interests are weird... I did things that nobody wants to do and created an unchallenged playing field. I only do things that I find is fun and it is funny that what's fun to me is hardly fun to others. Perhaps having no elder cousins helps a lot as set my own standards - I am the standard.I always believe that if opportunity don't knock on my door, I find another door or knock it myself...

So in many cases, what most of my friends see as good things happen to me, I created them. I made myself ready for my own creation.

At the foundation are 5 things: endless supply of enthusiasm, perseverance, perpetual learning, doing what others don't want to do, going the extra mile.

Then I asked Jeff, "You know where's my starting point that leads up to today?" "No idea man, you never talk about it" he said, which begins this monologue of describing my last 15 years from the age of 15...

It began by holding a thankless and unwanted position back in NCC when I'm in secondary 3 as an administration specialist, an uncontested position, but a position that puts me in the very spot of information flow. I'm the only one in the school who has all the name lists. Then I see the value of information and knowledge, so I continued as a CLT. I want to know how the system works and the 1st rule I learned was "Know the rules well and break them properly."

My 1st task was to read all the directives I can lay my hands on. Then I held many appointment in camps... PC, OC, DyS1, S1, AG1, DyS3... I'm only the only officer that had failed the most trainees but through all these I know how army works in general.

Concurrently I was in poly... I did what I can and got the top marks for genetics. I showed my lecturer that I'm interested in what I do and it happens that her officemate then was the lecturer who will teach me molecular biology in 2nd year who is also my direct supervisor now, so she knows me even before she taught me. I love molecular biology and I really want to learn more, so I keep going back to her for more reading materials if possible. In the end, I got my distinction for molecular biology also. She became my supervisor for a mini-project and got my distinction for that also.

Then there was a biology essay writing competition at that time. I entered that competition and got consolation prize, fighting with the rest of other poly and JCs. I'm the only person from poly who got a prize in 5 yrs.

I did my final year project under the same supervisor. By then, I've completed my computing diploma, doing it part time, so I can use my programming skills in my project, which is unheard of. That got me my distinction for my final year project. Hence, I turned out to be the only person in my cohort to get distinctions for both projects. From then on, I knew I like science.

In army, I went back back poly every few months for visiting etc. During army, I did my advanced diploma in computing. At about that time, my links with NCC got me to know a guy who became my 1st employer. At that time, 1 of the CSMs whom I've trained when I was in poly was then the current CLT OIC. Yes, somehow NCC was the start of many good things for me. Although it is a good platform, I cannot compete on my weak areas like physical or going for airborne courses. Even if I were to improve on them, I will not go very far. I compete on my strong areas as an administration officer where nobody even want to be near.

Then India had a massive earthquake in Gujarat. Someone had an idea that NCC has a lot of manpower and we can do fund-raising. Something new... So we did it... The CLT OIC automatically becomes the project chair and I'm the operations director. It was under Pasir Ris Citizens' Consultative Committee. The project manager was a guy called Arthur Chan, director of a company. He saw my performance and asked me what's my plans after army. I told him my plans to further study and he asked me to join him for something if I had the time. So after ORD, he became my employer - the wireless project at United Square.

I went to Melbourne after that. I kept my interests in IT and biology. On biology side, my BSc; IT side, I joined MUCSA (Melbourne University Computer Students' Association).

There are lines of activities that I run, the start of the line is myself. I won't say that there is luck or I'm very lucky for every line that leads somewhere, there are tens of lines that I've created and died. They do not exist today, though some of these non-existent lines twined into the current line. Like in MUCSA, I started off an AI special interest group that didn't get anywhere. I have heaps of projects that failed, heaps never even took off an inch. However, in this AI-SIG, I managed to give 2 lunchtime talks to computer science students on AI. The AI-SIG line died but it got weaved into another line - when someone in CS department wanted to start AUSCC (Australian Undergraduate Students' Computing Conference) I was in the name list.

The papers were peer-reviewed and I publish my 1st paper there. It's about the project that I did for my advanced diploma in computing. I tried to work on that project but never got anywhere except that publication, so that's another dormant line.

Then I carried on and became the secretary for AUSCC steering committee. We did another 2 conferences in RMIT and ANU. That line is dead now too - AUSCC only lasted 3 years. That's already my 1st year of my PhD.

In my PhD, a lot happened also. I used to have an IT supervisor. He was giving me a lot of negative comments and doesn't think I will or deserve to pass my PhD. In the end, I have to remove him. He challenged me to write up my literature review and 1st data chapter and submit to his named experts to comment on my scientific rigors. We are in a deadlock and I took his challenge. I send it to 4 of his named experts, only 1 replied - Professor Thomas Rindflesch from NIH. This was his comment...

Maurice,

In general I think your dissertation demonstrates scientific rigor regarding natural language processing for biology. Although it is a matter of style, I think it would be good to discuss the contribution of your work at the beginning of the introduction, rather than at the end of the review of the literature. I would also recommend that at this point you expand the discussion just a bit regarding the use of a generic system. You need to emphasize the significance of your contribution. As for the system itself, you need more detail about finding SVO. This is crucial in supporting the accuracy of protein-protein interactions. For example, it's not clear whether the S, V, and O have to be contiguous. Whether they are or not has a significant effect on accuracy of results. You may want to look at two of my papers related to you work. I've attached a copy of the first one; the other is readily available through PubMed. Good luck on your dissertation.

-Tom Rindflesch

When this happened, I was in University College as a resident adviser already. I got this email when I was in a conference in Sydney with my supervisors from Zoology. When I came back to Melbourne, I explained the whole thing to Genevieve and Annie Mitchell (another RA). They thought I did the correct thing. I further send my 2 chapters to 8 other experts, only 1 replied - Professor Jonathan Wren, an associate editor of Bioinformatics.

Maurice:

Interesting work, and it seems promising. I think you need to benchmark it on some more datasets. Try to get ahold of some of the BioCreative and KDD Cup datasets - they're good for benchmarking protein-protein interactions. You also need a discussion on context. Some interactions are context-specific. For example, insulin increases glucose concentration in cells. Insulin decreases glucose concentration in the bloodstream. So it depends upon your perspective.

Also, it will be very valuable and informative to benchmark it on a large dataset - millions of abstracts. Small datasets are nice & neat and all the rage, but researchers get excited when the possibility arises that some system could possibly be applied to massive datasets with reasonable accuracy. Achieving 90% precision & 80% recall sounds impressive, but if it's only from evaluating 50 abstracts, it's not. So I think you need to perform a few scale tests to see how scale affects F-score.

Good luck!

That was dated 12/10/06. Jonathan's comments helped me to get that chapter published.

In 2005, I took a test and got my sports nutritionist certification. Then I wrote a proposal to the CEO of that organization, International Fitness Association, about an advanced certification which have to demonstrate in-depth understanding of the issues... like writing a review paper. He accepted my proposal wholesale. And for that, I was the 1st and only current examiner for IFA and awarded a life-long tenure as a "Senior Fellow" styled as "Fellow of the IFA". That's why I can use "FIFA" behind my name.

In end October 2006, Melbourne University had an open house in Singapore. I was introduced to my current director by Professor Derek Chan, Deputy Dean of Science in Melbourne University. After a few round of discussion on the bioinformatics curriculum, my current director, Dr Thomas Chai, asked me to apply to them. That's Jan 2007. I was evaluating the bioinformatics programme in SP. For that, I wrote a proposal to Thomas as well.

In 2005, I also started 2 new lines of things. I joined Firebird Foundation as a member and joined the newly formed Melbourne Python Users Group. I pushed for an industrial/academic hybrid journal for Firebird database and Python respectively. No reply from Firebird side.....

A newly joined guy who happens to be the founder of MUCSA in 1998 back then, picked up the email for the Python journal. We rounded up some people and started the current The Python Papers with him as EIC and myself as AE.

In Dec 2007, when I went for interview in SP, it happens that SP wanted to start their health and wellness programme with a sports science component and told SP principal that I am the current examiner for IFA. Bingo... Do I know this will come my way back in 2005? Obviously not.

And my stint in UC gave me the contacts to many academic visitors. Some of whom I can meticulously name-drop. All these twined up in the best deal HR will give me.

In March 2008, TPP editorial committee decides to have 2 Editors-in-Chief styled as co-EICs and I became the other co-EIC. I revised my linkedin profile to reflect that and in July 2008, the academic chair of Republic Poly emailed me about starting a S'pore Python User Group and a Python conference in S'pore. I said ok... And now I am, organizing the S'pore Python Conference for 2010 with the assistant director of Sch of IT in RP... not so much as a junior lecturer in SP but as EIC of the only Python periodical in the world today.

Well... this is my last 15 yrs in a nutshell.

This path that I walked out is a graveyard of dead projects along the way - put one step in front of the last.

So you see how and why I can get so much scholarships? By the time I did it, I already have 8-10 yrs of experience of opportunity seeking and creating...

Life Principles: Passion

mauriceling@acm.org — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:52:03 GMT

Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way, "If a man is called to be a road sweeper, he should sweep the streets as Michaelangelo painted, or as Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'"

Passion is the force that wakes you up every morning for an enriching day ahead and at the end of the day, satisfied with the time spent. It is a simple idea but a lot of people willingly trade passion for another goal, money. Yes, I am not saying that money is not important but an additional of a few thousand dollars a year will not make you happy, will not make you sleep better and certainly will not buy your soul.

It is passion that drives a person into a hobby. At the same time, it is about the best weapon against Monday Blues.

You raise me up...

mauriceling@acm.org — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:34:28 GMT

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up: To more than I can be.

3 of the many hats of a teacher

mauriceling@acm.org — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:01:08 GMT

As a teacher, I want my students to do well and I am to help students to be best of my available resources and abilities, especially if they sound out for help.

As a trainer of technical skills, I believe that the best welfare is good training and that usually means enforcing tough and high standards to stretch my trainees to their fullest potential.

As an examiner, I am the quality controller to ensure all those who pass through my pen are skilled to meet the demands needed in the real world.

Reading: Master-Disciple Programme.

mauriceling@acm.org — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:27:45 GMT

Chow, Patrick. 2006. Master-Disciple Programme. Journal of Teaching Practice. Singapore Polytechnic.

Master-disciple paradigm is the old-time technique whereby a student learns from the same teacher over a period of time. The main findings of this study is "Being familiar with the lecturers has created for the students a more cordial learning environment. However, this close rapport with lecturers has not been translated to a significant improvement in their examination results." Personally, I like the idea of using a apprenticeship programme and considers it suitable for certain modules which requires an in-depth mental connection besides pure knowledge. Statistics has always been considered as suitable to employ this method and perhaps bioinformatics as well. It is certainly unsurprising that learning from a familiar face is much easier. However, I do not quite agree that "familiarity can breed ‘contempt’ as the students assume a blithe attitude towards the teaching staff". Although I do consider that some students may step across the line, such transgression is marginal and most students still know where the boundaries are despite being greyer and broader.

Why am I going the extra mile?

mauriceling@acm.org — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:02:36 GMT

Why am I going the extra mile? Someone asked me this question in class today when I passed around the sign-up sheet for my 1-day workshop on "Finding your ideal career" after knowing that I do not get paid and is running this workshop at my own time and effort. My immediate answer was "because it is fun." Having fun in whatever I do is important. If it is no longer fun, I will stop doing it. Maybe, maybe not......

Why am I going the extra mile? I am somewhat glad that somebody did realise that that's an extra mile that I had/am putting in. Beneath the fun, there is a deeper reason. I wish I had attended a workshop like the one that I will be running years ago and save some of the pains along the way. Although if it was offered to me, I may not attend back then. Nevertheless, in retrospection, I wish I had been given the chance at least. I was not. So since I have the time and energy, perhaps it is worth going that extra mile to help those people who want to be helped.

Are our students our product or customer?

mauriceling@acm.org — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:42:28 GMT

Almost a decade ago, in a module called "productivity and quality control", this question was asked - are our students our product or our customer? I had deferred this question for a decade and I must give an answer now.

Viewing our students as products, we are then the producers, manufacturers and quality controllers. Thus, there is an absolute need to ensure than our products must need required standards and controls, so that our products are up to scratch for our customers (universities and the industry). This means that a diploma is essentially a stamp of quality control.

Viewing our students as customers, we are then the and the marketing/PR staffs and salespersons. Then our role is promotion and attraction.

As customers, we are dealing with the initial part of the value chain. As products, our graduate are the end of our value chain. Both are important factors in Michael Porter's 5-forces model.

Perhaps it is difficult to say conclusively one or the other, our students are both our products and our customers. We supply skilled labour to the industry and knowledge base to the universities; thus, our students are products. Each of our students are our ambassadors; thus, our customers as well.

The question lingering today is not so much a product or customer issue but what is the after-sales and service contract?

Despite the formal continuing education system, I think there is a lot of room for informal after-sales services. Universities calls it the alumni services.

As tertiary education institute, I think we can play a better role as a source of information, advice, collaboration and friendship to our graduates.

So does it matter if our students are our products or customer?

Life and Tries

mauriceling@acm.org — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:32:04 GMT

I still remember that day when I walked into Penny's office to explore options that I have to finance my postgraduate studies, thinking, how many times do I have to go through all these and how many grinds I have to encounter? Penny's answer is simple but resounding - it is through these that the character is built.

Sometimes we take this long and convoluted journal of life thinking why is it so slow and so tough? I spent twice the amount of time and effort to get my motorbike licence - the number of failures and bruises were plenty. I managed to get through with a thought in mind: maybe the next time I will succeed.

My own reading of all these trials in life is that they are preparation for the bigger and more important things in life, as if destiny had planned our lessons in this life and is preparing us for what is ahead. So in stillness, everything is in plan. As mentioned in Desiderata...

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be there, and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Dearest 庄子 had epitomized the truth clearly in his words...

北冥有鱼，其名曰鲲。鲲之大，不知其几千里也；化而为鸟，其名为鹏。
鹏之背，不知其几千里也；怒而飞，其翼若垂天之云。
是鸟也，海运则将徙于南冥。南冥者，天池也。
齐谐者，志怪者也。
谐之言曰：“鹏之徙于南冥也，水击三千里，
抟扶摇而上者九万里，去以六月息者也。”
野马也，尘埃也，生物之以息相吹也。天之苍苍，其正色邪？
其远而无所至极邪？
其视下也，亦若是则已矣。
且夫水之积也不厚，则其负大舟也无力。
覆杯水于坳堂之上，则芥为之舟；置杯焉则胶，水浅而舟大也。
风之积也不厚，则其负大翼也无力，故九万里则风斯在下矣。
而后乃今培风，背负青天而莫之夭阏者，而后乃今将图南
-- 庄子 . 逍遥游

"Shallow waters can float a large ship"... Buddhists believe that one must go through all experiences of life before nirvana, so this is just a step towards that.

Savings - the foundation stone to wealth

mauriceling@acm.org — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:47:03 GMT

If there is a single event that Melvin (affectionally known as my "cat" brother) did that pleases me most is his concept of savings. "Save first, spend the rest" is the foundation stone to my own financial management philosophy. What do I mean? Simply, there are just 2 modus operandi that sits at the very foundation of a person's finances: savings as priority or savings as residual. Savings as priority simply means that you treat your savings as a bill which you have to pay, no defaulting on this. Savings as residual means that you spend all you want and then saves the rest. In the former, you will end up with a substantial amount to kickstart other financial plans while in the latter, you are likely to end up with nothing. The lowest priority is no priority at all.

savings = income - expenditure

Given that income tends to be more fixed, it is up to you to fixed either savings or expenditure.

Personally, I find the concept of save first to be very simple. It is a concept that hundreds of personal finance books advocate - save up 10% of your income. Yet, this is a concept that I find either a person gets it like a a candle illuminating a dark room or never at all. You can spend years drilling this concept into a person but it is unlikely to get in. I had never seen or heard of anyone that can gradually learn and accept this concept. As Mark Tier said in his book The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett and George Soros:

Believe it or not, you can usually tell whether children are going to be wealthy or not by the time they are three or four years old. If they take their pocket money and immediately blow it on candies - and the next day ask to borrow a dollar you know you're unlikely to ever get back - let's hope this behaviour doesn't last them a lifetime. Sadly, too often it does.

But if a child is frugal with his pocket money, always putting aside a chuck of it, you can be confident he has a good chance of achieving financial independence as an adult.

Sadly and reluctantly, I have to agree, even though I am not too sure about the three to four years old part until it was re-iterated by my thesis adviser, Dr. Kevin Nicholas, who said (I am unable to quote word for word) that certain traits that you can see as a toddler will be there when he/she grows up.

Frugality is also a foundation theme to Thomas Stanley and William Danko's The Millionaire Next Door where they exposed the myth that the wealthy are also spending lavishly. No, they are not. According to Stanley and Danko, the multi-millionaires that they had interviewed led a lifestyle no different when their wealth are mediocre.

Warren Buffett is also highly thrifty and this point is emphasized in many books about him that I will not reiterate.

Many people wants to be rich to enjoy good food and fly first class. Sadly, you don't need to This accounts for the increasing national credit card debt faced by most developed nations. Credit card has an interesting history. It originates in early 20th century as lines of credits bought by companies to be issued to executives to company business. It is almost like blank cheques but safer. Then, credit cards were overseen by CFOs. When these cards were later de-regulated (or lesser regulated) for the general public and interest rates on these credit lines goes up. At the same time, with no CFOs overlooking your back, it is easy to understand why people can swipe like no tomorrow resulting in crippling debt.

The obvious reason why a person needs to save to be wealthy is simple - you need capital to begin with. If you can't even get this capital, then forget it.

Another important reason is that wealth is a function of time rather than a function of amount. That is, wealth is measured in time, not the amount that you have. This is an important principle from Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. To put it simply, if you stop working and stop getting a salaried income, how long will your current asset sustain your current lifestyle? This length of time is your wealth.

For example, if you spend 30k per year and you have asset of 90k, then your wealth is 3 years absent of any passive income from investments. So let's go back to the savings equation,

savings = income - expenditure
wealth = savings / expenditure
= (income - expenditure) / expenditure

From this, it is easy to see that lowering expenditure = increasing wealth. Given the same income, you can either increase wealth or increase expenditure. The latter is what I called as "living high".

So where does financial freedom or financial independence comes in? Financial independence in Robert Kiyosaki's term means indefinitely wealth, that is, you never need to work again for eternity and your current lifestyle will be maintain eternally. The main words here are "eternity" and "eternally". From our wealth equation, it is not possible, unless you either have infinite savings or zero expenditure, both of which are impractical.

So we have to expand our framework. But before we do that, let me bring in a few other concepts from Rich Dad Poor Dad (this is why I will recommend Robert Kiyosaki's books to the real novice despite its major criticism - most notably, John Reed's http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html). Asset, Security, and Liability. In the most simple form, an asset is something that gives you more money, a security is something of value, a liability is something that takes money away from you.

What does this mean? For example, money in your wallet is a security (doesn't give you more money) but money in your bank is an asset (pays you interest). Bills and so on are liabilities. So, there is no such thing as a depreciating asset. "Depreciation" and "asset" are incompossible terms. Now, that is still an ideal world situation. In reality, there is an insidious factor called inflation that can make money in your bank a liability. Inflation can be defined as the rate of price increase of goods and services over time, resulting in requiring more money in absolute terms to buy the same goods and services at a later date. But let us just stay in the ideal world for the moment.

With the concept of asset, security and liability, we can move on. Savings can be all three of them. When savings is an asset, it is called investment. As a security, it is cash. When I define savings above as the difference of income and expenditure, I am defining the cash component of savings. So, lets change the definition of (income - expenditure) into "cash". There is no term for savings as liability, let's just call it inflation.

cash = income - expenditure

savings = investment + cash - inflation

wealth = savings / expenditure
= (investment + cash - inflation - expenditure) / expenditure

This is quite messy to deal with, so lets simplify it. The "expenditure" in the numerator is actually money that you need to survive now and can be easily put it as amount for one year. The "cash" is actually emergency money which most people will set aside, lets put it naively as an amount equivalent to one year of expenditure. So we can remove these 2 terms from the equation by setting aside money that I need to use now and one year's expenses as emergency. That brings this equation to

wealth = (investment - inflation) / expenditure
= (investment / expenditure) - (inflation / expenditure)

These two terms are the crux of financial freedom but I put more emphasis of (investment / expenditure) than (inflation / expenditure) simply because (investment / expenditure) is individually controllable. However, the term (inflation / expenditure) has an important revelation - the more you spend, the harder inflation hits you in absolute amount. Inflation is only present when you are thinking about using the cash. If there is no securities exchanged, there is no inflation. This is actually implied by the definition of inflation. Because inflation is not something that a person can control, I will remove it from the equation and just work with

wealth = investment / expenditure

By our previous definition of savings, investment is savings that gives you more money. Thus,

investment = cash + return

It is the returns of the cash (a security) that makes investment an asset. The driver for this equation is "cash" because "return" is in reality "the returns on the cash". This is what makes savings critical - to amass this initial cash. Now, this is an interesting part of the argument. By substitution,

wealth = (cash + return) / expenditure
or more precisely,
wealth = (cash + return - inflation) / expenditure

As said, the thing that puts money into the equation is "cash" but "inflation" and "expenditure" draws money out the equation. "Cash" just sits there. The definition of inflation can be restated as the increasing value of expense needed for the same goods and services over time; hence, inflation is a factor of expense. So,

wealth = (cash + return) / expenditure

Hence, if "return" is EQUAL or MORE THAN "expenditure" (which includes inflation), then that is financial independence or financial freedom. That is, you do not have to work but your investment returns will pay for your expenditure.

Mathematically, this wealth equation has to be calculated on a yearly basis, as the unit for "return" and "expenditure" is dollars per year.

The next question is, how much cash will I need? Since "return" has to be at least the same amount as "expenditure" and "return" is also a fraction of "cash", the answer can be expressed as a factor of "expenditure" where

factor = 100 / rate of return on cash

"Rate of return on cash" which is a percentage, is commonly known as "return on investment" or ROI.

ROI = (final amount - initial amount) / initial amount

For example, if you invest 10k and at the end of the year, get back 11k, then your ROI is 10%. Hence, if your ROI is 10%, then you will need 10 times your expenditure in cash to invest to get financial independence. The lower the ROI, the more times you will need in expenditure. Conversely, the higher the ROI, the less times of expenditure you will need.

ALL the investment books and experts in the world is just maximizing ROI. To get to ROI, you need cash to invest. To get cash to invest, you need savings. To get savings, you need to LIVE BELOW YOUR MEANS.

Book of Quotations (V)

mauriceling@acm.org — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:03:34 GMT

Writing up the doctoral thesis is like running the last part of SOC (Standard Obstacle Course) -- straightest but toughest.

-- Maurice Ling

The Un-Intelligent (Stupid) Design of Man

mauriceling@acm.org — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 04:38:43 GMT

EYES: When you install a lamp, will you put the wires in front of the light bulb where it blocks the light? Well, that's what human eyes are wired - the blood vessels that feeds the light-sensitive cells of the retina are in front of the retina. Our eyes are formed by folding of tissue layers and it is very difficult to reverse this "manufacture error". This means that the light rays have to pass through the blood layer before we actually "sees" it. And this also why diabetics and people with high-blood pressure gets into trouble - when the blood vessels are damamged or burst, you lose vision.

HEAD: Out of the 6 appendages of a male and 5 for a female, the one you can't lose is the head, for obvious reasons - it houses the brain and 4 of your 5 sensory organs. Yet, it is supported on a pathetic stick called a neck. For that, it is a nice target board.

SPINAL CORD: Our most important bus of information is actually en-cased in a highly movable and indeed, fragile bone column. Ask the agony of those people with slipped-discs... Worst still, we have only ONE such bus. Engineers at Boeing and Airbus knows the importance of putting 2 sets of hydralics to steer the rudders in case oen fail. And hopefully, we are diligent with out computer backups.

LUNGS: Mammals have a 2-way lung system, means the air intake and expulsion are through the same vent. This is highly inefficient. The air we breathe in is mixed with the air that we are trying to breathe out. How do you think a care will perform if the air intake in also its exhaust? Birds on the other hand has a 2-way lung system, fish's gills are a 2-way air exchange system as well.

SORE FEETS: What do you expect from walking on your leg's wrist?

BRAINS: Albert Einstein said "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." Enough said......

2 money lessons by my parents

mauriceling@acm.org — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 11:46:17 GMT

1. Savings - I seemingly recall that it was my mother who taught me how to save. Perhaps not so much about the techniques of savings but the fact that money can be saved. When I was 6 (my 2nd year in kintergarden), my mum gave me 40 cents a day in school. What I did with the money is simple, put it directly into my piggy bank... There's nothing to spend on anyway... So that's it, in a year, about 130 dollars later, I just got into the habit of savings before spending - rather instinctively now.

2. Budgeting - I must owe this to my father. Since the first week of primary one, I was given 10 dollars for a week. My dad told me a very simple rule - 10 dollars for a week, no more no less. I can use all in a day and starve for the next few days or I can handle it properly. With the exception of certain pricey items like a laptop, I had never asked any extra cent from my parents.