Yet Another New Year

Ouh..now it’s already 2010. As usual new year celebration was held at Embankment area but I didn’t go mainly because from last year’s experience, it was SO COLD! Temperature would be at sub-zero and the crowd was utterly massive. People were stuck in tube stations and bus stops but since it’s a once-a-year event, they didn’t have to pay for the tickets. But staying at home is not that bad as I still got to see the fireworks live on BBC1 and from the window as well.

My first two weeks of holidays was basically full of sorts of stuffs, such as:

1. Facebooking (you are evil!)
2. Sleeping
3. Eating Pringles and takeaways
4. Watching movies
5. Setting up a website
6. Playing Keyboard
7. internet (window) shopping

and the crappy list goes on……………….

Now that it’s only one week left for winter holidays, I shall start revising my autumn term subjects notes! Urgh. But I think I might go somewhere else next week, maybe somewhere in or just outside London…trying to use my holiday at the fullest before the most awaited spring term starts and there will be no more time for me to go anywhere else except EEE Department, Imperial College London. Literally.

Ooh yes..I would like to introduce you to my new baby- a prime lens. It’s Sony DT 50mm f/1.8 SAM. Well…it’s reasonably cheap and amateurish but really good for taking decent potrait pictures. One thing I like about this lens is that its end doesn’t rotate when focussing, so I can attach a polarising filter without worrying the rotating bits  =)

Cheerio!

Kisah Dulu-Dulu

Dulu-dulu saya obses dengan muzik dan selalu curi-curi bawak balik master score dari bilik band, pastu key in dalam Sibelius. Dulu-dulu saya  selalu jugak bawak balik, kadang-kadang curi-curi bawak balik instrument balik rumah kalau ada cuti weekend-alto sax, flute, clarinet sume saya bedal. Lepas tu abah ngan arwah mak saya cakap nak belikan keyboard. Saya pun suka lah.

Form 3. Form 4. Form 5. Keluar SESMA. Tak dapat keyboard.

_______________________

Dulu-dulu kakak saya cakap nak bagi hadiah gitar kalau saya dapat straight A PMR. Saya pun suka lah. Walaupun tak reti main gitar tapi sebab saya obses dengan muzik, instrument apa pun hentam je lah kan.

Exam. Result keluar. Tak dapat gitar.

_______________________

Itu semua kisah dulu-dulu. Sangat seronok bila dengar sesorang nak bagi benda yang sangat diidamkan. Tapi seriously saya tak kecik hati pun sebab tak dapat keyboard. Balik rumah sekali sebulan, nanti sapa nak main keyboard. Berhabuk la jawabnye. Dan instead of beli gitar, kakak-kakak saya beli sesuatu yang lagi berharga – jam tangan Swatch. Saya guna sejak 2003-2006 dan sampai sekarang saya masih simpan lagi jam tu.

Anyway, sekarang saya dah beli gitar dan keyboard. Seronok dan lagi puas hati, Sebenarnya banyak lagi janji-janji lain yang saya dapat. Someone janji nak belanja makan lobster. Oh…harap2 dia ingat lah. Tapi kalau tak dapat pun saya tak kisah.

Someone janji nak saing jalan2. Someday, perhaps?

Selamat Hari Raya!

To my dear family and friends

SELAMAT

HARI RAYA

AIDILFITRI

MAAF ZAHIR

& BATIN

and don’t forget the food

I Even Eat It Hard

Do you ever browse your blog’s statistics? See top post clicks, referrers, top categories, blog hits etc? If you do, either you are very concern about your readers, or you’re being narcissistic. Heh.

Narcissus (Greek:Νάρκισσος) – a hero from Greek mythology

So, my narcissus side urged me to see M.C.B.O.D.C.K’s blog stats. For some unknown reason my top post is still “Wahai Sup Sayur!” and it has been months. Yesterday’s referrers includes Google Translate, on “Wahai Sup Sayur!”.

I clicked on the link, and it translates the page from Bahasa Malaysia to English. Here comes the funny bit~

Voila! O Vegetable soup! Since the post was half-malay-half-english, everything becomes so rojak + ABC.

“Even nak makan pun susah” —> “I Even Eat It Hard”

A Man’s Adventure, Part 1

This pic was taken when heavy snow struck all over London and across UK. This is where I stayed for the past 9 months. Since it’s one of Imperial College London’s Halls of Residence, I paid less than the actual market value for that kind of accommodation. On the other side, it’s 20-40 mins journey by bus to the main campus at South Kensington, or if you prefer a much cost-saving option, it’s just 25mins walking distance *London’s walking pace*.

30 St Mary Axe. Nicely shaped skyscraper located at the main financial district, the City of London. There was no intention to visit the place at all, it’s a side benefit when I read my map wrongly. LOL

The melting snow marks the end of a celebration. This pic was taken at Hyde Park, 3 days after the heavy snow. IC was closed for two days due to safety reasons and transportation problems. Tube, buses, and all means of public transports were suspended as well so we walked out from Wilson House to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens – to enjoy our last fluffy moment!

Mile End Road taken on Green Bridge, Mile End Park, London Borough of Tower Hamlets. A small yet beautiful park. There was a day when I felt so stressed, I sat in a bus until the end of the bus route. Such a random act, and the bus took me here. Managed to calm myself and guess what, I made a lasagna when I went home.

London Central Mosque, near Regents Park. A shot after Friday prayer in March 2009. I occasionally went here to perform Friday prayer, IC’s prayer hall or Salahuddin Trust is a much closer option. But here is much comfortable place and there’s some cheap halal food stall here as well!

Old Royal Naval College building, The University of Greenwich. This picture was taken from Royal Observatory, Greenwich. I’m suggesting anyone visiting London to go to this place since the scenery outstands others in London.  Too much exaggeration? Well, I’m expecting those Greenwich people to treat me Nasi Ayam later~haha

Lunchtime Concert at IC Business School lobby entrance (Tanaka Building), performed by ICSO. I wish I could be one of them! But I think one needs to take ABRSM or something equivalent to join this symphony orchestra team. Still, there are IC Wind Band, IC Big Band and others, which requires no prior qualification- just purely human talent!

Size Does Matters

I would assume that most people won’t notice they are not getting the maximum out of nearly everything. Simplest example – MP3 songs. MP3 is a lossy audio format, it compresses up to 80% from the original source file, particularly from audio CDs. But are you hearing silent loops when playing your MP3 songs? Unless it’s a corrupted file, you won’t notice any difference at all.  Still, people invented other types of audio container formats that implemented lossless compression method. Somehow “lossless compression”  sounds a bit awkward, at least for me. One of the file format – FLAC – stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec – really grabbed my interest. It won by being the most versatile and flexible and widely available format.  I’ve been downloading few songs albums hoping to hear the mere difference between lossless and lossy audio. Note that they’re not typical 128kbps mp3s, they’re high quality 256kbps ripped from audio CD. So, it’s a battle between FLAC audio files vs high quality MP3 songs.

Here’s the question. Is there any difference between both files? The answer is yes, although it was just a slight distortion which could only be heard using my Sennheiser earbuds (not a chance using my laptop’s speaker!). But then there comes an issue – are the songs ripped correctly? I mean, of course it stated 256kbps, but I used to get a 320kbps songs with truncated audio waveforms. So, the bit rate can’t really reflect the whole quality of the files.

Since the quality isn’t differ that much, we shall see another important aspect – the capacity. A 6.03 mins track will cost your harddisk:

MP3 : 8.33MB

FLAC : 38.95MB

That is not a pleasant fact at all.  Those FLAC files eat up your storage nearly 4 times bigger than a normal MP3 do. So, why care about lossless? Well, from my personal point of view, the fact that i’m listening to a nice lossless audio files, be it Bach’s or Matthew Bellamy’s, it satisfies me enough. It’s like the “Wow, I own a Vaio although the specs are far less better than an HP!” feeling, if you know what I mean. Currently I’m not switching all my MP3 songs to FLAC, just only few albums from my favourite British band. Why? Because size does matter! Yeah, until I get myself a 1.5TB of external storage.

The developer – Xiph.Org Foundation

Though, I have to admit that I’m being unfair for not revealing the whole features of FLAC – it’s multichannel support, encode/decode time etc. I would suggest that you experience it yourselves. Try to get some files to your hard drive, blast  it on your 5.1ch Harman/Kardon. Perhaps you can hear some more significant difference.

Quack!

i’m still here !

-= this blog shall be updated really soon =-

Turn Off the Light!!

Whoa..after 3 mind-torturing weeks  finally i’ve managed to get rid of those wicked exam papers. Nine bursting papers in total, making EEE the most paper-you-will-get-in-exam course, compared with other courses (as far as I concern!).  For months i woke up early and crossed Kensington Garden, conquered a PC in the Wolfson IT Learning Suite, and did everything there..let’s hope it’s all worth it.

“The Last Lunch” – Pidah and Tumi

Like others whose  just finished their exams, now it’s travelling time  for me as well. I’m visiting York and Leeds tomorrow to se my fellow friends there. York – of course my cheeky chaletmate Naim, since he urged me to come there since easter vacation…but i hadn’t got much time during the easters(busy with my own trip I guess..hah), so this is the perfect slot. I’m very keen to see the “ducks, geese and squirrels” there. Much like a vet isn’t it?. Oh yeah…of course I want to meet others as well-McNa, Fatin, Shauqi..

2nd stop – Leeds. Fer insisted me to go there. You should amuse me there or else I will throw away your Lycopodium..lol.

*When I decided to do something in which I believe it can solve my problem, it always leads to something worse. Help, anybody???*

Bermulanya Minggu Peperiksaan

Sempena minggu exam nih, blog M.C.B.O.D.C.K akan dibiarkan bersawang sebentar selama 3 minggu. Ni jadual exam untuk pelajar-pelajar tahun pertama jurusan Electrical and Electronic Engineering di Imperial College London.

Monday, 27 April : Introduction to Management & Organizations

Tuesday, 26 May : Devices & Fields

Thursday, 28 May : Digital Electronics I

Monday, 1 June : Electronic Materials

Wednesday, 3 June : Mathematics I

Thursday, 4 June : Mathematics II

Monday, 8 June : Analogue Electronics I

Wednesday, 10 June : Analysis of Circuits

Friday, 12 June : Communications I

Adeyh…banyak betul subjek & paper. Semoga dipermudahkan! Amin..

Gud luck everyone!

Witness

Ini Prayer Room(PR) kat Imperial College. Urm…well…not really. Ni gambar ruang rehat dekat PR…ada sebijik microwave oven dimana pelajar2 suka panaskan bekalan makan mereka…heheh. Walaupun PR ni tak besar mana, tapi kat sini lah tempat student2 muslim solat, makan, study, rehat dan sebagainya. Biasanya aku solat zohor kat sini sebab malas nak balik ke Wilson House yang sangat jauh itu. Lagipun almost tiap2 hari akan ada makanan halal yang dijual dalam Prayer Room (PR) pada waktu tengah hari. Biasanya lunch kat sini je sebab : 1)Murah 2)Makanan Malaysia (read:Nasi Lemak, Nasi Tomato, Nasi Goreng). Makanan ni malaysian student sendiri yang buat..hargenye 2 pound sahaja. At least lagi murah daripada Nasi Ayam (read:nasi lauk ayam) berharga 3 pound yang dijual di prayer hall di sebuah universiti lain..hehehe. Kadang-kadang solat asar pun kat sini kalau balik lambat. Kadang-kadang study kat sini jugak sementara nak masuk waktu zohor. Kadang kadang tidur kat sini jugak sebab ada bantal kecik yang empuk!

Tapi hari ni tak macam hari-hari yang lain. Petang tadi study kat library…dalam kol 5 ptg gerak pegi PR untuk solat asar. Lepas abes solat asar, sorang ISOC rep buat pengumuman mintak semua jemaah tunggu jap sebab nak witness sorang brother peluk islam. ni 1st time tengok detik2 seorang yang dahulunya bukan Islam, diajar sebut kalimah syahadah both in english n arabic, dan akhirnya dia Islam. Rasa terharu n syukur bila dengar bro tu mengucap kalimah shahadah.