Per Ardua Ad Astra

Last Saturday was a day of unexpected events.

I went to Plaza Berjaya for my second Starbucks training session on a Saturday morning. The bummer part was I have to wake up at the crack of dawn to make it to the KTM station in time at 0730, so I’ll reach the Imbi monorail station at 0830 with plenty of time to spare for the class at 0900. The trip was uneventful and I reached there with no problems.

The first person I met waiting at the Training Centre was someone I didn’t recognise (uh-oh). Well, I reasoned, they must have shuffled the class attendance or something. Made the usual pleasantries and then made my way down to 7-11, not Starbucks for coffee (waking up that early isn’t really suitable for my brain). Yeah, I got myself Nescafe, not a cuppa at Starbucks. All right, I’m not helping my employer out here, but for my defence I’m only paid RM4.50 an hour and I only get free beverages after working for at least 4 hours. Happy now?

Anyhow, the worst part is to come at 0900. To my horror, the time for my class is actually 1400! Crap, such stupidity on my part. So, what can I do to wait out 5 hours? I took the advice of one of my fellow barristas from my branch whose class is at 0900. I decided to go over to Berjaya Times Square and pass the time in Borders. After all, going back to SJ and wait it out is an insane idea, and a waste of money too! Plus, the prospects of waiting it out in a bookstore sounds like the best value for money plan(it’s free, so what can possibly beat that?)

After happily walking over to Borders, you would have guessed by now what I found. A closed Borders, and a sleeping Berjaya Times Square. What a bummer. Now, what else could I do? Even Low Yat Plaza does not open that early, and besides, I’m not in the mood for any price huntings for gadgets at the moment. With nothing to do, I just wandered around the Square like a ghost, under the eyes of the security and cleaning staff. I figured, "Well I might as well go find out what else is in this 10 storey mall."

So, looking like a potential Starbucks terrorist scouting for a suitable place to plant explosives I went roaming around (I was bringing along my usual black bag, plus wearing my black Starbucks shirt). In hindsight I just realised why the security wasn’t so interested in me. Apart from being a Chinese (so I can’t be a fundamentalist terrorist), I didn’t bump into any ‘potential’ cafes to bomb. That might explain a lot of things. hehe

What did I discover? The fact that the most number of stores goes to those selling ladies apparels, followed by beauty salons and health foods. Secret Recipie was hidden somewhere to the rear on the 3rd floor (I think). Clickers is all the way on the 9th floor, with some of the IT shops (Idiots!). Food court is actually on the 10th floor??!?! It’s bloody high up, but at least they have a nice view of the theme park though. There’s Lorenzo and Empire on the 8th or 9th floor, selling really nice furnitures (quite expensive though, and the beds seem a bit smallish). That unoccupied space somewhere on the 9th floor is unlocked (what a security risk). There’s some places where you can look out at KL, near the elevators (but not really photogenic, IMHO). There’s only 2 Starbucks in the Square (one at the entrance, the other one is near GSC) and not 3, as somebody once told me. So there you go, the results of a full hour of ‘reconissance’. But it was somewhat boring though, doing all the exploring alone. There you have it, interesting, but paradoxially boring and tiring.

And finally, at 10am Borders opened and I get to enjoy the comforts of a sofa and books. =) A book titled Physics of Superheroes caught my attention (the title plus the fact that the book was yellow was eyecatching enough), so I grabbed it. Bottom line is, not a book that you might want to read, unless you’re a fan of all things comic or are an absolute idiot when it comes to Physics. Then it was on to gaming books (it was conveniently next to my sofa, the ‘How to’ game books). Learnt a bit more about a few card games (blackjack, poker), mahjong and pool. That’s all. And then it’s time for lunch. That’s it. Time’s up. Along the way I tried to figure out which route to Low Yat is quicker from the monorail stations, Imbi and Bukit Bintang. My verdict is Imbi, if you take the additional shortcut (guys, don’t go around Melia, go behind it! You’ll enter Low Yat through another entrance with the O2 shop).

Finally, at 1400 I got into class on Communicating Coffee. Basically it’s all about coffee, sort of a crash course for us to learn the coffee basics so we won’t be complete idiots in serving customers (Tip :Don’t simply mix coffee and drink them because some combinations taste really horrible). And then it’s back to home sweet home. And of all the places, I bumped into ol’ Ches in Carrefour. Haha. Oh well, i suppose friends do turn up at the least unexpected of places. =)

Moral of the day : Double check the class times!

On January 10th, the United States has officially notified the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency that NASA is preparing to launch radioactive material.

The rocket launch trajectory is expected to take it near southern Africa and Australia. The UN is notifying these nations of the upcoming launch. NASA has estimated the probability of a launch accident involving the release of plutonium dioxide at about 4 in 1000 (that is 0.4%). If there were a launch accident, the US would offer clean-up help to affected nations.

Intrigued? How come that isn’t headline news? It is, but not in the way you would expect it to be. NASA is not interested in nuking neither Africa nor Australia. Instead, New Horizons, the US Pluto-bound mission is about to begin it’s mission, carrying 10.9 kilograms of radioactive material  to power its instruments during its frozen odyssey through the solar system. For those of you Aussie bound, don’t worry. The plutonium dioxide is only weighing 10.9 kilograms so it can’t kill you unless the whole chunk lands right next to you.

Hopefully come January 17th, Humanity begins its decade long journey to visit to the last planet in our Solar system, Pluto! That’s right, the fastest object to be launched from Earth aimed at the furthest planet in the solar system still takes a loooong time to get there. Even with a speed that will bring it past the Moon in 9 hours instead of the usual 3 days for the Apollo mission!

JHU-APL / SwRI

Now, coming to planets the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has been trying rather unsuccessfully to make a precise definition of what to call a planet. So, by the time New Horizons reaches its primary target of study, that rock surrounded by possibly 3 satellites we call Pluto today may not be called a planet anymore but a planetoid or Kupier Belt Object instead? Well, apparently the astronomers couldn’t agree with the definition, but one thing is clear: Pluto’s planethood stays. There are far too many sentimental humans that would cause a major public uproar if the opposite happens, so that is one reason why the definition is taking such a long time in coming along. With Pluto being a must-include, the list may grow to between 12 to 30 planets, so until the IAU meets again in Prague later this year, nobody can say anything definitely even at this ‘late’ stage.

PopSci’s Jan issue focuses on the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, it’s AI-equipped vehicles and their future applications. Of course, the future autonomous vehicles that are currently envisioned are still wheeled or tracked (no surprises there). But right at the end of the article, the long distance goal are legged robots. Now, I had a few friends who seem to think that mechs are the next revolution in warfare, so I bet this is what comes to mind instantly in their minds…

US Armed Forces of 20XX…

classicbattletech.com

I think mechs as fighting vehicles are a cool thing (nobody would want to mess with the big bad boy, that’s for sure), but the thing that has been nagging me at the back of my mind is : Are they practical? The mechs in the Battletech Universe are cool; you can run, jump-jet and pack a whallop with these heavily armored behemoths. With DARPA also conducting directed weapons research, why should the vision of mechs equipped with missiles (MLRS systems is a good candidate), pulse and small, medium, large lasers (to be developed), machine guns and tank cannons not be possible, mech-ers would reason. All right, there is no jumpjets, Gauss cannons or PPCs since nobody has yet to come up with that yet. But close enough right?

So, from the weapons standpoint, it’s a piece of cake. But those friends of mine haven’t given me a darned good answer for one thing, and that is propulsion. How the hell are you going to move a 35 to 100 ton walking machine? In the Battletech universe, they have cold fusion reactors. We don’t have that, at least not for another 20 more years so it’s back to square one right? But if this exoskeleton and backpack idea comes to fruitation, we might have human sized mechs coming to an American barrack near you in the near to mid future.

Ok, so what is the problem now? Let us assume for a moment that we can build mechs. Mechs that are heavily armored, can walk and fire missiles, guns, cannons and lasers at anything that stands in its path. Pretty invincible eh? Ok, now imagine that the US Army has a Mechanized Division equipped with them. And imagine that they go off to war (North Korea for example). Now how is the Pentagon going to send them over? Walk underwater across the ocean floor ala Pirates of the Carribean style? Fly them there? No dropships at the moment gentlemen, and a crash would kill thousands in a densely populated area! Ekranoplans? You’ll carry only one mech per plane, and could you win a battlefield (the DMZ will be the main objective here) with just a dozen mech or so (I’m using an inflated number of 12 100 ton mechs)? For logistics planners, that is going to be a major headache. In Matrix, having the APUs is logistically possible since they’re used in home defence, not expeditionary missions.

Now how about urban warfare?

battletechuniverse.org

As you can see here, the mechs are gonna have a problem in patrolling cities and insurgents will have a field time tripping up those mechs, especially in tight corners. Besides, how are soldiers going to build rapport with civilians when the mechs are trampling all over the place and the pilots ensconed in the cockpit high up above the civillians? Mechs are going to be too clumsy to handle in these situations, and the Pentagon is bound to be painfully aware of this situation (Iraq sure helped them do that).

If that isn’t enough, what about air strikes and artillery? Fine, there are technologies in the labs that can kill mortar shells and missiles, so you’ll have to tack them onto the Mech. So, the end result? One freaking huge logistics nightmare. And since you are dependent on so few fighting machines, a mechanical failure is going to be a big problem, especially in fast skirmishes and in protracted fights. A problem of too many eggs in one basket, don’t you think?

My conclusion : Dream on kiddos, it’s not gonna happen for a long while more. But if it does, that’s going to revolutionary! That’s for the Battletech universe mechs. What about Titans and Wolverines from Tiberian Sun? Much more plausible, but still a maybe. Powered armor? Bigger batteries required. That more or less sums up the whole situation.

Greenpeace.org

Some time ago, somebody forwarded this to me. It’s a Greenpeace ‘Say no to genetic engineering’ statement condemning practices in commercialising Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). Here is an interesting ecological dilemma. GMO promises to increase food yields and reduce land use for agricultural purposes, but could potentially ‘contaminate’ the environment if the genes disperses into the wild. But without GMO, we would be forced to continue with our trend of increasing land usage for development, effecively taking it from the environment and contributing further to global warming. Is there any way out of this?

Here, some scientists might have come up with a solution that could satisfy everyone : Underground growing labs. Pretty simple concept, no?

Oh, and anybody interested in green ham? Yeah, that’s right. Fluoroscent green pigs! It’s Taiwan’s achievement in stem cell research while South Korea is grappling with their humiliating setback in theirs. Apparently, the fluoroscence should help them follow the pig’s development. So, don’t start hoping that you’ll be able to make ham sandwich in the dark just yet! =)