Back to work

For a period of 7 days starting from today, SATan will be hard at work on a “secret” project.

Wish me luck. It ain’t going to be easy.

Moving house

Today I moved out of my laptop.

This laptop has been with me for one semester.
I surfed the Internet on it, carried it with me to class, suffered through projects on it, rode to school with it in my box, took the bus to school with it in my hands, lay on my bed working on it, lay on my bed slacking on it, placed it in the back of my friend’s van, quarreled with friends in front of it.

I’m returning it tomorrow.
One semester of memories.
Goodbye HP Compaq 6510b.

The Reactions of Visitors Towards a Flyer-Distributing Robot

Spent the past few days manning my project work booth at the recent Spinnovex 2008 (Singapore Polytechnic’s project fair). Manning a booth at an exhibition, especially one that is not going to earn you any money, provides one with a good opportunity to observe the behaviour of people while being somewhat detached from the situation.

I observed a robot from the opposite exhibit. It was programmed to seek and approach nearby people while holding a tray with flyers and sweets on it and offer them the items on the tray. This particular robot was a simple little machine with sensors, wheels and a male mannequin’s torso mounted on it, dressed up in a shirt, vest, bandanna, cowboy hat and dark glasses.

For three days, I watched this robot wandering around, rather “enthusiastically” offering visitors (and occasionally us) the items on its tray. What was most interesting were people’s reactions to it.

Some laughed critically at the failure of its technology when it became confused and spun in circles (fortunately not very often)
Some (adults and teenagers) expressed fear, walking gingerly around the robot, touching it quickly and running away.
Many people, upon being shocked by it initially when it accidentally bumped into them, realised it was a robot and smiled kindly at it, not unlike the way one would smile at a little child or little animal.
A number of visitors, especially male, showed keen interest in the machinery and peered at the wheels under the robot, or stood at a safe distance to observe it.

A number of people took advantage of its passivity by doing things that they would not usually dare to do to a human being. For example, a Malay girl called it “handsome” in a loud voice, then went off giggling with her friends. Quite a large number of people expressed aggressive feelings towards the robot, pretending to slap it, patting it on the face in a condescending manner, etc. A group of young students surrounded the robot to prevent it from moving. Another group removed its hat but promptly replaced it afterwards.

Others treated the robot as merely a surface, placing trash and other such items on it. However, there were only a few of these occurrences.

An interesting observation was that after reading the flyers, visitors would tend to place the flyers back into the tray held by the robot rather than discarding it.

A mix of reactions that one would give to a living animal combined with those that one would give an inanimate object.
Humanoid robots are a unique piece of machinery.
I doubt that this robot would have provoked such a unique response if it hadn’t been in the form of a human.

Other people are always dropping my bikes

Today my friends X, T, H and C decided to mess around with my bike after lesson.

I showed them where the important parts of the bike were, and they were very impressed when I turned the throttle. Vrooooooom!!!!

I had initially allowed X to ride Knut, cause he already had a driving license and therefore understood the concept of clutch and throttle control. And he could ride a bicycle so he would most likely be able to balance a motorcycle.

So X went a few shaky rounds the carpark and proclaimed that it was very fun.

And then everyone except H wanted to try. C could drive, however he couldn’t balance a bicycle so he was out of the equation.

And T hadn’t got a driving license yet (he was taking lessons) so I asked him if he understood the concept of clutch control. He said he did.

On his first try, T stalled Knut. But that was nothing compared to the second try.
On the second try, T threw clutch/used too much throttle/both and Knut just flew off towards a parked car, then fortunately crashed right before the wheels of the car.
If Knut had hit the car, we’d be in deep shit.
It was our lecturer’s car.

And after that T confessed that he had only gone for his first manual car lesson before this =_=”‘

Knut was unhurt except for a bit of lost petrol and a broken screw on the handlebar, causing the mirror and the clutch to shake up and down. Fortunately it was the left side so I was still able to ride home.
We secured it with a number of rubber bands.

Later I went to buy some replacement screws at HomeFix.
Going to fix the mirror tomorrow.
So much excitement in one day.

I don’t forget you, you forget me

Last time I used to have this lecturer riding a Valkyrie and at that time I was still taking my license. He even rode his brother’s Hayabusa to school for me to see cause he knew I liked Hayabusas.

Now I came back with my own ride and said “Hi” to him and he doesn’t recognise me cause I cut my hair.

Nabeh.

Today while riding…

My battery died in the morning after 4 days of inactivity.

At first I didn’t know what to do, so I called KTM but he was busy at the airport. He said he’d rush down once he’d finished.
I asked him to tell me how to push start the bike over the phone, but he refused. He said it might be dangerous if I didn’t know what I was doing.

Anyway I decided to have a go at it myself anyway. So I searched the Singapore Bikes Forum.
Then me and my sis went down to have another go push starting Knut.
First we pushed Knut to the top of a slope.
Then I sat on Knut and my sister pushed him down the slope. When it reached a constant speed, I threw clutch. The engine roared to life. I throttled and rode off happily, yelling “Thank you! Thank you!” like an idiot.
Well, the 2 people push starting method is not dangerous.
It’s only dangerous if there’s only one person trying to push start the bike, cause when the bike starts moving on its own, it’ll start running away from the pusher.
But since I was on Knut, when he started running away, my sis could let him go and I could bring him under control before he went over the curb and down the hill.

Well, so shortly after, I rode to school to submit my project and charge the battery.
After I submitted my project, I decided to ride down to the food court for lunch.
So I was riding slowly into the carpark, and then I parked my bike and removed my helmet.
Then I saw this guai (obedient) and nerdy looking girl, looked rather young so I guess she must have been year 1.
And she was staring at me and Knut and gaping in admiration.

Kinda makes my day to know that I’ve inspired some girl to ride a bike? 🙂

This is Spaaartaaa!!!!

Anyway,

Knut reached the shop after all. He needed a battery change, which the shop did for me for free, I just had to pay for the towing.
He was ready for collection yesterday morning, but I’m only free to collect him on Saturday…

Anyway,
My final year project was due today. Unfortunately most of it isn’t done yet.
We managed to get an extension to Monday.
IT IS PURE MADNESS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW.

And KTM is allowed to drink sips of water now.
Poor KTM.
But it’s better than nothing though…

Fwah!

First project marathon of this semester completed!

Better get a nap and a good bath before I go out trail riding later…

Biker number 1

After 10 years of mostly interacting with girls only and fantasizing about Hayabusas and having company that was like “Oh you like bikes, I think bikes are cool too” and when you ask them what model they love most they say “Harley!” cause to them all motorcycles were Harleys, I went straight into a course like Information Technology, the kind where there are only 3 girls in the class and the rest are all guys. And immediately there was a huge culture clash cause I usually speak English and was from a pretty good (I was the bottom of the whole level, ok?) all-girls school and most of the others usually spoke Chinese and were from neighbourhood schools.
Anyway there was a huge difference between our thinking.
It even resulted in some people coming to the conclusion that I was a lesbian.
A lesbian? No I’m just a tomboy la.
However, I recognise myself as bisexual now…

I dress like a slob because of many reasons.
One is that it saves money.
Another is that you won’t find yourself in situations that you are not prepared to handle, ie. having to climb up stairs in a miniskirt.
The other is that I didn’t want to complicate the relationship between me and my friends.
I didn’t want them to think of me differently just because I am female.
I do kind of go out of my way to assert my equal-ness, not in the kind of “women’s rights” kind of way, but rather by acting in a way that is more aggressive, such as sleeping on tables, sitting in a very non-ladylike manner, girl-watching and making comments about chio bu (pretty girls), talking in pretty lewd and vulgar language, using aggressive speech and other assorted stuff, and dressing like a slob is just part of it.
Basically I wasn’t out for a relationship.

I met Biker number 1 (B1).
B1 was the only person I knew who had a bike.
It was like seeing someone who has actually gone there and has achieved the kind of thing you always dreamed about.
He offered to pillion me once and I rejected based on what I had been told by my parents (don’t ever get on a guy’s motorcycle, it’s not decent, it’s dangerous and you have no idea where he will bring you, then he’ll go very fast so you will hug him and he will feel shiok).
But then I thought, what the hell, might just as well give it a go, it’s not something you’re going to have everyday.
So I got on, and it was fine and exciting and not scary and he was a decent guy. And I felt shiok like, wow, I’m on a bike that’s so cool.
(Now, I realise that even if anything I don’t want happens when I’m a pillion, I can threaten to force the rider to crash and I’m not afraid of crashing and neither am I afraid of dying so long as I can preserve my dignity)
He encouraged me to get my 2B license.
He encouraged me when I felt like quitting and told me “Even if you feel discouraged, don’t ever stop going for lessons, cause the longer the absence the more time you will take to learn”.
I started to think about getting a bike.
He talked me through my options and advised me against getting a sports bike unless I wanted to eat grass for the rest of my life.
I thought day and night and ended up thinking of getting a Yamaha Spark135
We went to the Hong Leong showroom and he ended up advising me to get a RXZ instead cause it had more power.
At one point, we got so close that I think we nearly got into a relationship, but none of us proceeded because he had a girlfriend.
Once he told me, “Sometimes you cannot be with the girl you love most, because your thinking and background and hers are too different, and if you actually get into a relationship it will cause a lot of problems.
Some of my guy friends like to tease me about both of us being together and I used to get rather annoyed and irritated cause I was afraid that what they said would affect our close friendship and make him view our relationship in a different way and I used to be very afraid that he might misunderstand because of them and we wouldn’t even get to be friends anymore.
Now I don’t really care shit cause I think he knows they’re just joking and if that’s the case then all is fine…
He told me that he first started talking to me cause he opened the door for the class and everyone just streamed through and I was the only one who said thank you.
Wow, I don’t remember that…
He’s getting married to his girlfriend soon… and I volunteered to help him do ‘sai gang’ (odd jobs) and we make jokes about having a convoy of motorcycles to escort the bridal couple, having the groom drive the bride in with an RXK with an “ice-cream” type sidecar, and turning the whole thing into an Ah-Beng wedding and then his girlfriend will be pissed off that her dream wedding is ruined…. ahahahahahahahaha.
So that is just a bit about Biker number 1.
Haah… getting a bit tired writing this post… so it will end here. So this whole post will be about Biker number 1 instead….

Back from Batam

In case you didn’t know… I went to Batam again to… work. =_=”‘

Spent the whole day at the resort waiting and doing a presentation to the Infinite Frameworks people. Only had time to get a meal at A&W (curly fries!) and a box of donuts before we set off for home. Then upon reaching home, I was so tired I sort of fell asleep halfway through my dinner and only woke up at 5am.

So now I’m back, no alcohol this time, only donuts.

The one in the middle was eaten by my lecturer.

2 dozen for 85,000 rupiah (around SGD$14).
The other dozen was for my friend (it’s cheaper in bulk) so it’s not pictured here.
Mmmm.