I have a very old high school mathematics reference book in Chinese, printed in 1956. It belonged to my grand-uncle (mother’s mother’s brother). The book was given to me at least 10 years ago. And I have learned something “extra” besides the mathematics that I have learned in school.

Well, you may ask what is so special about it.

There is a part which amazed me - “Calculate the square root of a number without a mathematic table or calculator“. Can you do that?

When I was in secondary school, we were taught to calculate square root (punca kuasa dua) using:
1. Four-figure mathematic table (Sifir angka empat).
2. normal calculator.
3. scientific calculator. :p

I had never learned in school to calculate it manually using my brain and hand only.

This is how it works.

I learned it but never use it practically. Now is the world of calculator and computer. (Not even using a Chinese abacus or a four-figure mathematics table). We have no reason to calculate it manually. This part of the mathematics is only for references and not important at all.

If you need to calculate a square root of a number urgently but you don’t have a calculator in your hand, you will need to use this method. But we still have no reason to calculate it manually. Why? The reasons are:
1. we can go to buy a calculator. (The time to go to buy a calculator may be shorter than calculate it manually).
2. we can borrow a calculator from our neighbour.
3. we can call a friend, ask him/her to operate on a “remote calculator” and tell you the answer.
4. we can make mistake while doing the calculation. Besides time saving, correctness is also very important.

Printed in the year of 1956 and was sold at HK$3.20.

Everything in this world - cars, human etc., there will be one day in the future when they all get old, and finally become soil and dust and return to the nature. But the content in the book will never die because new books keep on printed with updated contents.

Is this book considered as in good condition while it is 52 years old?

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Science and Math in English or Malay?

Recently there is a decision by the government to change in the language used to teach Science and Maths in primary and secondary school in Malaysia. During my time, it was Chinese for my primary school, Malay for seconary school and English in College and University. I am not an MP nor PM, and do not wish to debate which one is better and anything about this topic.

But I have learned about this issue that we should make decision with clear purpose, take a small step by testing, make some adjustment if needed, and keep the final goal in mind all the time. :p

I tried to take the photo of the Moon again last night.  Now I can capture more details than previous.

This is the photo of the moon while it is on the 20th of Chinese calendar.  It is in the last quarter phase.  In astromony photography, any time besides full moon is the best time to capture the detail of the moon surface.  The reason is because of the angle of the Sun, Earth and the Moon that creates the details on the moon, you can notice that the part  in the middle of the moon where it is partially shadowed always shows the volcanos of the moon (pimples :p) clearly.

Why?  I saw many photographers have flash attacted to top of their camera, they like to turn the flash light shooting to the roof, ask them why.  Same theory.  :)  This is call “Side Lighting”

This is the full moon that I have given to SiewPeng.  It is perfect, no pimples, golden in colour, and the moon maria (sea on the moon, darker park) create a shape like rabbit.  We like it.  :D :D

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I have learned 3 facts about taking the photo of moon.

1.  If you want more detail on moon, you can’t get the full moon.

2.  If you want the full moon, you can’t get the detail.

3.  At anytime while we are standing on earth, we are not possible to see the other side of the moon.

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Anyone want to accept the challenge to create a HDR photo of the moon to show all the details?

Years ago, when I was in primary school, my parents gave me a toy keyboard. I digged it out a few days ago, and recalled a lot of memories. Its colour turned a bit yellowish after 20 years, and it is not working anymore.

My parents did not sent me to music lessons, but let me played with the keyboard myself. When I was in primary 3, I can play the melody of songs that I had heard from TV or radio.  Until now, I can only play the melody using right hand but not the part with the  left hand.

I know the reason why I can’t play using left hand, it is because this toy keyboard was designed to play only one key at a time, I cannot press 2 keys simultanouesly.  :p  Hmm…  I should not blame the keyboard, the actual reason is I didn’t learn it.  Anyway, I thank my parents a lot for giving me this toy keyboard.

-  Its size is quite small compared to an actual keyboard or electronic organ, but it was more than enough for me.  The only song that I cannot play was FeiYuChing’s “YiJianMei”, because of the range of the picth is limited.

When I first played with this toy, I can only use the black key to play a proper melody. :p  Slowly, I discovered how to use the white keys.  My mother showed me how to play as well.  I still remember the moment she pressed the key.  May be I will show her this toy keyboard this evening.

-This keyboard allowed me to record a limited numbers key pressed that is enough for a song’s melody.  In Play mode I can play back the recorded melody in different tempo.

-  There are 7 different types of musical instrument sound can be produced.  (Piano, organ, violin, flute, horn, fantasy and mellow).  I like the fantasy the most and dislike the flute many years ago, when this keyboard is still alive.  If this keyboard can be repaired and get alive again, I wonder if I still have the same preference now.

-This is the part where the chord can be played.  I know the effect, but I’m not sure what dim, sus4, m6, 6, maj7, m7, m, 7 are.  Can someone tell me?

-The tunning screw is at the bottom of the keyboard.  I like to turn it when I was a kid, no wonder I had shorterned its life.

I wished I had learned piano.  I have a virtual keyboard in my computer which I used to create a midi.  The rhythm part took me hours.  If I learned piano, I may have done it in minutes.  Click on the play button below to play.

I feel that something is missing on the music above, but I don’t now what is missing. Please comment.

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Congratulation to SiewPeng’s sister because she has just passed her Grade 8 piano exam with distinction.

As you can see, our traffic has dropped since Oct 2008, while I start my network cabling project which took away most of our time and caused us lack of taking care on our baby blog, the results was as above. In this month, it has an increase of about 30%. Let me tell you the reasons that make it happened.

Reason #0: Time Factor.
Time is the root factor of the reasons below. If I were as busy as last October, the following reasons won’t happen.

Reason #1a: We have joined Nuffnang & [thanks to innit].
Actually I signed up both Nufnang and its competitor on the same day at the same time, but later I found that its competitor show white screen on the ads area, which didn’t match our theme and make our blog ugly. I let it on for few hours and remove it. Few days later, I got the Glitterati status on Nuffnang which enable me to share this blog with more readers using innit. From that day on, ColinJong.com’s traffic has start recovered from its lowered peak by attrating extra numbers of local readers.

Reason #1b: More interaction with other blogger.
With innit, I have jumped out of the box and found more other blogs that are match my tastes. The traffic has increase because I view other’s blog and others view mine as well. This happen naturally but not purposely. I only read other blog that I am interested, and I swear that I read before I nang except sometime it nang automatically. Leaving comment on other’s blog also atrract some traffic to ColinJong.com. I did it not for attracting traffic, but I would like to exchanging ideas with others. Attracting traffic has been done unintentionally.

Reason #2: Fixed Feed problem.
Feedburner didn’t not pickup my latest posts, and I didn’t know until months later. The worst thing was I redirected all feed (rss/atom from my domain) to feedburner. It caused some readers or even web crawlers thought that I did not update my blog for ages and leaving colinjong.com. I had transfer feedbuner account as requested, and used the Resync feature to clear the old cache store at feedburner and it automatically retrieve my latest post. It has been working properly until now. I did it in January and the traffic from Google Blog Search increased because it indexes blogs by site feeds

Reason #3: More posts/sharings = More Traffic & [thanks to search engine].
We share more things, and it automatically attract more visitors in this month. Of course, we also make sure the quality is acceptable, and not blindly post anything. Both Quality and Quantity are important to us and our readers. We wish to obtain ISO :p

Few more minutes to go, Feb 2009 will be gone. I hope that my traffic will keep increasing.

Happy belated birthday to Nuffnang !!!

Lately, we found a smaller version of something that we need to use every day.  It is a T-shirt, in a compressed form!  We think it’s a pretty good idea for travelling because it is light and easy to be carried around.

In order to expand the compressed T-shirt, fill a pail of water and soak it in.  It will be expanded in a matter of minutes.  It is almost like magic.  I wonder how they compressed it in the first place and how much it costs if someone were to buy it.  We don’t know about the price for this one because it was a gift.

When it is fully expanded, it becomes a normal T-shirt and ready to be hung to dry.  Last but not least, it is ready to be worn too!  However, if you intend to bring a compressed T-shirt along with you when you go on a holiday, it is suggested that you bring some extra clothings because you need to wait for them to dry before you can wear them!