Smart tunnel can withstand quakes
Ok I live on rumours, I admit. It's just so amazing that people live their lives on rumours which nobody can prove right or wrong really. But as RPK said in one of his articles a long time ago, rumours in Malaysia most often turns out to be true in the end. Why so? Well, nobody would start spreading rumours if there weren't at least something to base it on right?
Anyway, back to the point. I'm pretty sure most of the KL residents would know about the much publicised SMART tunnel. Another news today says that it can withstand earthquake. Here's a wiki article on the SMART tunnel. Well, it is in fact a major construction, so major that it made Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering programme which I love to watch so much.
SMART tunnel stands for "Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel" and it is supposed to prevent KL from facing any flash floods like it did a few years back. Remember the time when the parking lots under Dataran Merdeka got flooded? I suppose this is a good project for the city and for the citizens as well.
One question remains, why so expensive? That's RM1.8 billion my friend, hardly matching the loss of the recent KLSE slump but nevertheless still expensive. I believe there coud be a way to cut its cost somehow. Only that they wouldn't bother doing so because it's gonna either the public or the government who would be paying anyhow.
So the rumour is this. I was told but I forgot from whom that the TBM(Tunnel Boring Machine) used to construct the SMART tunnel, the Tuah from the north side and Gemilang from the south side, couldn't be taken out of the tunnel after it's completion of the work. The cutting wheel of each TBM contains something akin of diamonds, possibly the hardest substance there is on earth. So what should you do when you can't take those machines out? Simple solution, they drill deeper and store it there, for it to rot.
Now how much money is that? I blame that on bad planning, not an unusual phenomena in Bolehland.
Not so SMART afterall eh?
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Baby boom?
Girl gives birth to baby in school
These kind of news don't even shock the public anymore. And that's how it's supposed to be. The growing issue of labelling students having premarital sex has put them in loads of unnecessary pressure. I mean imagine this pressure is not there, wouldn't it be better for that extra life to be there. Whereas now, the poor baby didn't even get to see daylight.
Consider this. Life is always about money isn't it? The general argument is that they can't afford to have babies because they can't even make money yet. Oh yea, I've seen lots of people younger than me leaving school and working their ass off. Although they said it was more fun in school when you don't have to face life's problem THAT early, working to pay for the family IS ALWAYS WORTH IT. Wouldn't you think so?
Have a happy life people. Love your life, love your family and treat others as how you would like to be treated.
IPOH: A Form Four student, who complained of abdominal pains, excused herself from taking part in sports activities only to secretly deliver a baby girl at her school.
She delivered the baby at 1.30pm yesterday at the sick bay of her school in Manjung, about 90km from here. The baby, with its umbilical cord still attached, was found dead in a bag belonging to the student.
These kind of news don't even shock the public anymore. And that's how it's supposed to be. The growing issue of labelling students having premarital sex has put them in loads of unnecessary pressure. I mean imagine this pressure is not there, wouldn't it be better for that extra life to be there. Whereas now, the poor baby didn't even get to see daylight.
Consider this. Life is always about money isn't it? The general argument is that they can't afford to have babies because they can't even make money yet. Oh yea, I've seen lots of people younger than me leaving school and working their ass off. Although they said it was more fun in school when you don't have to face life's problem THAT early, working to pay for the family IS ALWAYS WORTH IT. Wouldn't you think so?
Have a happy life people. Love your life, love your family and treat others as how you would like to be treated.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
SPM SPM where art thee going?
New SPM Record Likely
Once again I have to salute the top scorers for doing something I can't even do, scoring in SPM. Anyhow as I'm trained as a statistician, I can't help but wonder why the term "is likely" is used.
What is their basis on the claim of "likely"? None. Zilt. How can the mainstream media make such an irresponsible claim? It can be potentially misleading and truthfully, they are quite lucky that this is not a very important matter.
Think about what if they make a claim that "The Bursa is likely to gain......". I would be so pissed off by that, and how many people would be deceived in this false perception? This is exactly one of the problems journalists face. I bet my lecturer would be happy to comment on these kind of misleading statements, he had come accross many misleading statistical statements made in COURT, no joke.
Anyhow, back to the topic of the day. Dude, I plead to thee the Education Minister. Please, I don't really wanna see another few thousand straight A1 achievers. Raise the standard of the exam when you see students getting smarter and smarter. Reserve the straight A1s to a few of the REAL elites. I dream of a day when students getting straight B3's or A2's would be just as proud of their results.
Isn't it better this way? Don't you think so?
..........is likely to get 19 1As in the examinations and replace Nur Amalina Che Bakri, who obtained 17 1As in 2004, as the country's top scorer.
Once again I have to salute the top scorers for doing something I can't even do, scoring in SPM. Anyhow as I'm trained as a statistician, I can't help but wonder why the term "is likely" is used.
What is their basis on the claim of "likely"? None. Zilt. How can the mainstream media make such an irresponsible claim? It can be potentially misleading and truthfully, they are quite lucky that this is not a very important matter.
Think about what if they make a claim that "The Bursa is likely to gain......". I would be so pissed off by that, and how many people would be deceived in this false perception? This is exactly one of the problems journalists face. I bet my lecturer would be happy to comment on these kind of misleading statements, he had come accross many misleading statistical statements made in COURT, no joke.
Anyhow, back to the topic of the day. Dude, I plead to thee the Education Minister. Please, I don't really wanna see another few thousand straight A1 achievers. Raise the standard of the exam when you see students getting smarter and smarter. Reserve the straight A1s to a few of the REAL elites. I dream of a day when students getting straight B3's or A2's would be just as proud of their results.
Isn't it better this way? Don't you think so?
Fire Fire
OMG, I can't believe my luck today. I actually set on the fire alarm, and it's not a false alarm, it nearly did turn out to be a fire. Well the story goes like this......
I was heating up some soup on VERY LOW fire in the kitchen and came back to my room. Soon, I forgot about it and when the fire alarm rang, I could see smoke coming out of the kitchen door. Then I remembered!! SHIT!!! I forgot to turn off the fire. The kitchen was filled with smoke(windows shut) and visibility is nearly zero. At that moment, I took a deep breath and rushed into the kitchen to turn off the fire. It was an absolute disaster.
Soon, everybody was out of their bed and outside in the cold. It was 4.30 in the morning!!! In the morning!!! The soup was boiling for more than 3 hours. Sigh....... bless me. Even the fire brigade came and the whole waiting period lasted for more than 20 minutes. As expected, at the end of it I received a lecture from the security people and they even took my name down, presumably to report it to the University office. Guess I'll be expecting a hefty fine there and what makes matter worse is that it's gonna be in pounds. I so wanna cry now sigh......
Oh well, I just finished typing an apology letter to be sent out to residents of other flats who were forced to evacuate. Hopefully I don't get a backlash, at least not a big backlash for that. I mean it's an accident right? Or actually more like a careless mistake? Soon, I'll be the black goat of this flat. Pretty unlucky huh?
What have I got to say? I just feel terribly sorry.......
I was heating up some soup on VERY LOW fire in the kitchen and came back to my room. Soon, I forgot about it and when the fire alarm rang, I could see smoke coming out of the kitchen door. Then I remembered!! SHIT!!! I forgot to turn off the fire. The kitchen was filled with smoke(windows shut) and visibility is nearly zero. At that moment, I took a deep breath and rushed into the kitchen to turn off the fire. It was an absolute disaster.
Soon, everybody was out of their bed and outside in the cold. It was 4.30 in the morning!!! In the morning!!! The soup was boiling for more than 3 hours. Sigh....... bless me. Even the fire brigade came and the whole waiting period lasted for more than 20 minutes. As expected, at the end of it I received a lecture from the security people and they even took my name down, presumably to report it to the University office. Guess I'll be expecting a hefty fine there and what makes matter worse is that it's gonna be in pounds. I so wanna cry now sigh......
Oh well, I just finished typing an apology letter to be sent out to residents of other flats who were forced to evacuate. Hopefully I don't get a backlash, at least not a big backlash for that. I mean it's an accident right? Or actually more like a careless mistake? Soon, I'll be the black goat of this flat. Pretty unlucky huh?
What have I got to say? I just feel terribly sorry.......
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