Yes, the People's Republic of China has succeeded in manipulating hyperspace. Although they only managed to teleport a single particle, I am damn sure they will not rest until they can teleport the entire Terracotta Army to the doorstep of Washington D.C.



And when that happens, Russian President Medvedev will be thinking how fortunate he was to have signed that treaty with China.



When that day comes, I hope some astronomical catastrophe - an unprecedented super massive coronal mass ejection, Jupiter crashing into Earth, a black hole floating past our atmosphere or the Sun deciding to go supernova - will happen to wipe out all life on Earth.

The day when China rules the world... is unthinkable.

Oh, in case you are wondering, I got this piece of information from WikiLeaks.

Admiral Kizaru of the Marines.

For some reason, I feel like cos-playing him. The thought came into my mind after I watched him in action in the One Piece anime where he goes around kicking people at the speed of light like nobody's business.




Here's a guy who did a pretty nice cos-play of Kizaru (but the suit looks kinda... tacky). I think its the shape of the mouth. I wonder if I can shape my mouth like that. Hmm...

Or, I could combine Pikachu and him together to cos-play two of my favorite characters at one go! (Notice the mouth shape again.)

Coming back home today to paradise - ahhhh.

This has always been what I wanted. After a long day outside, I just want to come home and enjoy the serenity of solitude, away from the hustle and bustle of the Lion city. Silence. Peace. Tranquility.

Chilling out with my smooth jazzy music. Sipping freshly made orange juice through a straw. Lying on the couch. Enjoying the cool air from the air-conditioner. What more could I ask for?

Usually, I would arrive at home to face my nephew and niece, which my mom is babysitting while my brother and his wife are away at work. A toddler and primary school kid isn't exactly the kind of relaxation I am looking forward to at the end of the day. I personally feel that if you really want to have children, make sure you have time for them. But never mind about that. I shan't spoil the lovely mood tonight.

And when the kids are not around, I will have to face my mom's and dad's endless barrage of well-intentioned questions: "Have you eaten?", "What did you do today?", "Can you help me read this letter?", this and that and yada yada. I am not saying they are irritating but sometimes, I just don't want to be talked to, bothered and just want to be left alone. Plus because I don't have my own room, I cannot 'escape' from them.

They are all now in Malaysia for a short vacation. My parents, my brother, his wife and the kids. And they won't be back till Saturday.

I am going to enjoy this rare period of nirvana!

Hmmm. Are you thinking what I am thinking?

Pwned!

Commercial airliners are a wonder of the 20th century. These machines, which are a gazillion times heavier than air, can easily carry a few hundred passengers, together with their luggage and the fuel and supplies required to operate the craft, into the air and fly at speeds of many times the speed of sound!

Never did our ancestors dare to dream that we would someday be able to soar freely in the sky. And they surely didn't expect us to be able to fit bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens into our flying machines.








How is it possible for something so heavy to simply lift off and float in the sky? Well, part of the reason is because of the huge engines on commercial airliners which generates immense amounts of thrust to keep the plane in flight.

Jet engine is the most common type of engine used to propel modern airliners.




A jet engine works by sucking in air and then expelling them out at high speeds and temperature to generate the thrust required to push the airliner forward.




An airliner can easily weigh up to several hundred tonnes. Thats in thousands of kilograms mind you. To understand the amount of thrust required to propel an airliner forward, picture this:

an average human being weighs about 60 kg and all it takes is for a car traveling at maybe 80km/h to hit the person and he will go flying for several metres before crash landing. Airliners usually travel at about 900km/h. And they weigh several hundred thousand kilograms.




So, you now have a rough idea of how strong the suction of a jet engine is. Therefore, if the jet engine happens to be sucking anything else other than air...



In this context, the jet engine is not unlike a meat grinder.




Actually, the input doesn't necessary have to be a cattle. You can put in other types of meat and you will still get more or less the same output.




In other words, the meat in your MegaMac could be human and you won't know it. I discovered this shocking fact while reading Fast Food Nation but I will probably elaborate more on that in a separate post.

Now back to the main objective of this post: on January 16, 2006, an aviation mechanic was carrying out his routine maintenance duties on a Boeing 737 at El Paso International Airport in Texas, USA when he stepped too close to one of the plane's jet engines and... got transformed.
































































I really hope his death was swift and instant. Its really a brutal way to die. Talk about now you see him, now you don't.

Hmmm... maybe I should re-consider my career options.

This sensation is... suffocating!

I feel like King Arthur without the Excalibur - powerless, weak, worthless. I can only go where the flow takes me. I can't carve a path for myself.

Could this be karma. Oh my gosh.

I feel like lying in bed the whole day and just rot. Bad.

Goodbye horses.
I am flying over you.

Russian Federation, Canada and United States of America are the 3 largest nations in the world. Russia, the largest of the three, occupies a total land area of 17,075,400 km², spanning the eastern tip of Asia all the way to Eastern Europe. Canada is the second largest, measuring 9,984,670 km², followed by the United States which is 9,826,675 km² big.



For demotivational purposes, if any, Singapore is only 710.2 km² big. Yes, we are smaller than New York City.



But it doesn't really matter because we are all part of our beloved planet Earth, which is the largest planet within the inner solar system.



Yeah. We are huge alright. But when we move out into the outer solar system...




Screw you Jupiter! Are you on steroids on something? How the hell did you get so fat? Even Neptune is insanely bigger than Earth.




WHAT THE HECK! Sun! You are one huge badass mofo!!! Just don't roll over. Really. With 99.9% of the Solar System's mass inside you, once you start rolling, you will never stop.




And this is a family photo of our Solar System, showing who stays where. Seriously, the Sun looks like a super mean, super dangerous meatball which will roll over us sooner or later. But actually...




As huge as the Sun is to us, it is nothing compared to these other even bigger stars outside our Solar System. Arcturus can easily EAT the Sun for breakfast, lunch, high-tea, dinner and supper anytime.

We have entered a realm where no adjectives in the human language can effectively convey the sheer size of these monstrous stars. Big? Huge? Gigantic? Immense? Colossal? Gargantuan? How about very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very big.






There exists something else which is larger than Arcturus! And its like a million times larger! Which makes it a gazillion times bigger than our Sun. And infinitely larger than Earth! Even Jupiter has been reduced to invisibility at that level. If Antares were to roll into our neighbourhood, we will all die.

Holy shit. Outer space sure is a scary place.

I went to sleep at 10pm yesterday because I was really burnt out from the past 3 days of academic activities and other stuffs. Mostly academic activities. I wanted to get a good rest before chionging for my 40% quiz this Saturday. Yes. Saturday. The Laws of the Right to Have the Weekends to Yourself no longer holds in the context of university life.



Heck, even the natural Law of Singapore should have more Singaporeans has been violated in my school. But whatever.



So I woke up at 2.22am just now thinking that its 6.30am and time to head to school. But when I saw the little time counter at the bottom of my BlackBerry screen displaying 2.22am, I went ballistic on my family. I kicked my parents' bed, waking them up and giving them the shock of their lives. When they asked me what is wrong, I went into a hysterical tantrum, yelling at the top of my voice and knocking over all the furniture in my room. I went out into the living room and wreck the television. My dad tried to restrain me but I knock him out cold with the radio. My mom was yelling for me to stop. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what got into me.

You don't seriously believe that bullshit I just typed do you?

And so I woke up pre-maturely, feeling unusually parched. I guess that's probably the reason I woke up. The human body really has a good warning system. I could have died from dehydration if I didn't wake up to drink. So after a few cups of water, I am too bloated to go back to sleep.

Picture the following scenario:

You are the President of the United States of America.



One day, you were happily doing your job when your phone rang. You felt a slight shudder when you picked up the receiver.



Your hunch was correct. It was a bad call.



But hey, you're the American President. You have got to do something.



So having taken care of the first order of business, which is to show them whose the boss, you need to get down to serious business; how to save 3 American cities from being toasted by 3 dirty bombs planted by a terrorist.

Naturally, you don't want to deal with this alone. You can't anyway. So, you summoned the baddest badasses in your administration to your office to discuss a plausible solution to the threat.



But this is a national crisis. If any President can come up with a solution simply by gathering all his aides and asking them to think of one, heck even I can be President - of Earth. So while you guys are drinking and discussing, the bombs are ticking away in three undisclosed locations in three American cities across the continental US and A!

As the man on the top who has to be responsible if anything happens, you get inevitably stressed and starts to have funny ideas.



Then suddenly, you saw light.



The terrorist surrendered himself to the FBI. You must be confounded by the actions of the terrorist but who cares. You've got only three days left before the three bombs explode and vaporize three American cities from the face of Earth. The terrorist is willing to disclose the location of the bombs but only if his demands are met.

Americans DO NOT negotiate with terrorists. The President is no exception. Besides, his demands are ridiculous.



Time is running out. Either you solve the damn problem or you are going down in history as the President who couldn't do a thing to save three American cities from one terrorist. Yeah, real life choices sucks. But you still got to make one anyway. You've tried tempting the terrorist with money (only to take the money back and put a bullet through his brain after getting the bomb's locations), tempting him with lust (he circumcised too much of his ahem during a surgery) and talking to him nicely (he thinks you're retarded).

So, what else can you possibly do to make him talk?



Oh yeah baby, are you thinking what I am thinking =D
If you do a clean job of it, nobody else will know!

You must be thinking HELL NO! That is inhumane. Besides, my country does not condone any violation against human rights! We are the Big Brother of Earth. We can't go around flouting rules that we have set just because we feel like it (although we could). The United States is the Land of the Free!



Yeah. Sure. Stick to your principles and ideals. If you can't get the terrorist to talk, 3 days later, 3 American cities will be gone. We are talking about the destruction of a few millions lives. The psychological impact on the rest of the nation. The morale booster for the enemy. The criticism of the United States government's incapability by the world. Your job.

So, do you still feel like standing on the moral high ground?

That, is the premise of "Unthinkable".



This psychological thriller highlights an important aspect of today's delicate political arena; is it alright to torture when all else fails?

People like me shouldn't be unfamiliar with the term 'torture'. It is the intentional causing of extreme bodily pain to another person, whether for fun or for business, like in the movie plot depicted above.

Most people find the idea of torturing another person revolting and barbaric, which is probably why we have an Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations.



Yes, I have to agree that torturing is bad. It is not nice to hurt another person. My mom says we should all play nice with others. BUT, if there is sufficient reason, I believe it is alright to do so. And it has to be the last resort. After all, extreme situations call for extreme measures.

Think about the above plot. Its like 10 million of YOUR citizens' lives against one lone terrorist who is bent on wrecking havoc in the world.

The choice is obvious. To me at least.

And lets face reality. Do you seriously believe that every nation in the world abides strictly to all the rules created by the United Nations? Will you follow all your school rules or other rules in your life?

Furthermore, terrorists are not your conventional kind of enemies. They are unconventional enemies who doesn't fight head-on but instead, choose to strike from the dark and their targets are un-armed, un-trained and to some extent, un-fit civilians who have as much chance to retaliate as a chicken on the chopping board. How chivalrous is that?



And then there is the issue with torture generating bad information where the person being tortured might just lie in order to stop the torture. That may be true, but considering that you've got everything to lose while he doesn't, having any kind of information is better than no information. There's a 50-50 chance that he might be telling the truth too. Besides, more torture can be used to verify the information.


Ok, lets start with his finger. Hmm ain't working.


His ahem. Shit, still ain't talking.


Then kill his wife in front of him. WHAT?


Next to go will be his children. Oh his finally talking. But I shall just continue to verify if his lying!

OK enough with the nonsense.

At the end of the day, everybody's measure of morality is different.

Does the end justifies the means?