Absurdities

Just as I thought that last semester's lecture materials was pretty ridiculous, the notes from this semester's EEE lecturer has totally amazed me... I mean, I spent a few good hours trying to derive theory (which was not stated in the lecture material) from my tutorial answers. Either my brain's degenerating right after coming out of a*my or the quality of notes degenerates over the years of studying in N*U.

If I were to paraphrase my earlier post in today's context, it's like:

Language 1: Mathematics
It is something like:
Lecture notes: The '+' operator adds, the '-' operator subtracts... etc. E.g. 1 + 1 = 2; 4 - 3 = 1... etc.

Tutorial question:
Although these theories (mentioned as you read on) are not taught, starting from arithmetic operators, e.g. 1+1=2, 3-2=1, 2×2=4 and 4÷2=2, derive Pythagoras' theorem, Binomial theorems, Integration and differentiation, Euler's equations and the formulation of the value of π (pi).

Language 2: RPG Games Guide/Walkthrough
It is something like:
It is the start of the game where your main character starts in bed at home. You cannot rest in your bed to recover your HP and MP.

Your character has the following starting stats:
Status: Constitution down, Speed down, Strength down, Intelligence down, poisoned, blinded
Equipped: Broken sword (Attack + 0), Broken armour (Defense - 1)
HP/MP: 8 / 0
Strength: 12 - 50 = -38
Dexterity: 8 - 50 = -42
Intelligence: 9 - 50 = -41
Spells: None
Items: Rotten Bun x1 (causes Poison, restores 1 HP)

Now, there's nothing much to do in your home. Walk out of the house. As your main character steps out of the house for the first time, it meets the final boss (Attack: 450, Defense: 240, HP/MP: 320,000/40000, Strength: 214, Dexterity: 198, Intelligence: 201) in the game, and somehow, you're supposed to defeat it. As you face the final boss, start by attacking, and using the Bun when your HP drops by 1 point... oh, it seems that it's pretty pointless to use the bun. Oh well, just fight. And... good luck... I mean, I'm serious man - you're gonna need all the luck you'll ever need.

Language 3: Sports
It is something like: After a little kiddo has learnt to walk, you pump the kiddo with a can of 100 Plus or H2O, then take the kiddo out on a solo sky diving mission...

Language 4: Music
It is something like: After a person, new to music, has barely learnt how to read notes, he is expected to compose piano pieces (at a suitable standard no lower than for a Masters in Music) based on the Boroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern period. Perhaps one might think that the Modern period would be the easiest of them all considering that one could simply compose gibberish, but no... it's at a particular genre in the Modern era called jazz =)

Thought: Hmmm, what's the point of coming to uni learn when the standard of materials is... sigh... (ie. I'm better off learning from home).

Efficiency Curve

Since I'm sick and tired of a crappy assignment that I received, here I am blogging again to destress =) Hmmm, thinking back on...

1) The good old days in primary 1-2 when it took about 1-2 minutes to solve a question...

2) Then the relatively-good-but-not-that-old days in secondary 2 when a question took about 15 minutes to solve a question...

3) Followed by the not-as-good-but-still-good-enough-and-yet-not-too-old days in JC when a question took about 60 minutes to solve a tutorial question...

4) And then finally, the not-good-anymore-but-not-very-old-days-...(ie. a pause. OK, maybe it's weird to place a pause in a super-long-hyphenated word. But hey, at least it's a breather if you intended to read it out. And if you don't, it would at least give your brain a rest as compared to trying to absorb everything at a shot and start complaining/sighing-about-'oh, here he goes again'/peng-ing/cursing-and-swearing at me)-in-fact-it's-pretty-recent in uni as it takes about 300 minutes/5 hours to solve a tutorial question now...

Hmmm, looks like my efficiency of solving questions has been deteoriating. Oh man, this is bad bad bad bad bad... Well, it seems that the time taken to solve a question could be estimated via the formula:

t = 0.6 × exp (0.41431 × y)

where:
t = time taken to solve a question in minutes
y = the number of years of schooling since primary 1 [ie. pri 1 = (y=1), uni year 1 = 13]
exp(value) = exponential. ie. 2.718 to the power of [value]

And of course, here's a plot of the above equation for the points for illustrative purposes (hmmm, this sounds duh. I mean, what other main purpose is there in a chart other than to show something to those who are not blind?):

So, based on the above formula, I would generally expect 450 minutes to solve a question by the time I reach year 4 in uni. And if I'm garang (ie. brave) enough to taken on a masters in engineering, that would take about 11.45 hours per tutorial problem. And of course, come the time I'm mad enough (note: It's not 'garang'. It's 'mad') to take up a PHd in engineering, it would probably take about close to 40 hours just to solve a tutorial problem.

Thought: In short, it's bad bad bad bad bad... × t, where t = time as long as it seems bad to me in seconds.

Industrial Attachment Selection Aftermath

Scenario: As you were walking alone, you saw the heavens open and from the sky, a gold bar descended gently onto the path you happened to be walking along. What do you do?

a) Pick it up, keep it well, and thank God.
b) Kick it into the drain along the road and walk on.
c) Verify that the gold bar is a genuine gold bar by virtue of density, for all that glitters is not gold. Upon verification that it is truly a piece of gold bar, kick it into the drain along the road and walk on.

Well, today is the final day of selection for my industrial attachment and what I did was something similar to option [c] for the above scenario. How nice =) Hmmm... how great could life possibly not get? =)