Fukushima Heroes

I respect the Japanese.CNN via my friend’s blog:

The beleaguered crew had to abandon the plant control room Tuesday night because of high radiation levels, Kyodo News reported, citing plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Company.

“Their situation is not great,” said David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. “It’s pretty clear that they will be getting very high doses of radiation. There’s certainly the potential for lethal doses of radiation.

They know it, and I think you have to call these people heroes.”

I tear up, just thinking about it – these nameless people who walk into the furnace, knowing full well the implications of their selfless act, and walking in nonetheless. I sure hope that TEPCO and the Japanese government will take care of them and their families later, when the time comes.

The Japanese are really showing the world how to get their shit together in a crisis, while the Chinese sit idly by next door.

Not a Bright-Spark

I recently saw an advertisement in a local newspaper for the UM Bright-Spark programme. However, looking at the criteria, I noticed that I do not qualify because I do not have any quality publications. Frankly, my list of publications is close to zero. Damn, so I’m not a bright spark after all!!

But wait!

While I may have few publications, and those few publications that I have had are not cited at all, I have just discovered that I have quite a lot of citations elsewhere! (and these citations have other citations too!)

My work is used in academia by a number of universities. The earliest known one to me is my AE18 used at North Carolina State University way back in the early 2000s. My previous incarnation of AEMB was used at Virginia Tech and the current incarnation was used at TU.Delft and Shandong University, China. Actually, I’m sure that it is used far more widely. At one time around mid 2000s, the AEMB was the second most popular open-source microprocessor world-wide. It got about 10,000 hits a month. These are just some of the ones that I know about. Also, my work is found in commercial products already sold in the market. So, my work is also practical.

Lots of people I have spoken to wonder how can someone get cited without publishing. It’s definitely possible – using a modern method of peer-review and publication called Open Source!

However, this method is only easily accepted in the computing world because it was pretty much invented here. In other fields, it is probably not so easy to embrace open-source yet – because the proper exposure and mind-set is not there. I can easily imagine the biology world embracing it and the same goes with the other sciences but things will take some time.

Anyway, it’s okay not to be a bright spark. Like my doctoral examiner realised, I am an engineer first, not an academic nor researcher.

What matters to me is impacting lives (or saving them).

Helping Japan

I think that the Japanese deserve some respect for showing the world how to handle multiple crises. In most other places, things would have descended into chaos by now and the situation would be akin to ‘each man for himself’ already. However, the Japanese seem to be taking it in their stride and looking forward to rebuilding through their devastation.

Anyway, if you’d like to help, here’s a link to the appropriate Google page. It’s also on the side-bar to the right.

It Pours

It is most certainly pouring in Japan. They must be stretched extremely thin now. Nobody really knows how may have actually died and how many are dying. Sad.

Earthquake.

Tsunami.

Nuclear Plant Explosion.

Volcano eruption.

Teaching Programming

While I used to teach programming at Cambridge, I have never quite taught it like this before. I am now teaching programming to an 18 year old girl. She actually asked to do an internship with AESTE. However, after interviewing her I realised that she lacked the necessary domain knowledge to do the work that I require. However, since she was interested in programming, I offered to teach it to her anyway.

The way that I am teaching programming to her, is experiential. I gave her a one-day class in programming where I covered the basics of data-structures, algorithms and tool-chain. Then, I got her to write program that interested her. She likes simulations and started writing a planetary simulator with moons. Now, she is writing a real-time strategy game engine.

During the course of teaching her, I asked her what her plans were. At first, she told me that she wanted to study Mechanical Engineering but her reasons for doing so were extremely weak. So, I gave her some advice on how to choose an area of study and since she was really interested in programming, I gently nudged her towards computer related fields.

She does seem quite concerned about making money with her field of study and I had to keep stressing to her that you can make money in any number of ways regardless of what field of study she chooses. She still has some time to figure things out but in the mean-time, I will continue to encourage her in the right direction.

Otak-Otak Programme

I signed up with an interesting talent sourcing company in Malaysia – Otak2. I can best describe them as a head-hunting and personal-development company specialising in summer internships of Malaysians studying in top universities abroad. Although they charge a premium for their product, I thought that I’d give it a try to see how things go. If things work out, I may continue using them for sourcing summer interns.

Next year, I intend to try for Google Summer of Code too.

There are a number of interesting developments in my company. I did an estimate last week and by May, I should have about five people working on some of my projects and developing my eco-system. If things move well this year, I should have just under 10 people doing all kinds of things for me by year end. On one hand, I’m glad that things seem to be moving forward. On the other hand, it can be a little scary. I try not to look ahead and just take a leap of faith – in myself.

Anyhow, I have just been informed by Otak2 that they have had three applicants specify me as their first choice, within 24 hours of opening up their registrations. That’s a good start in my opinion.

PS: I’m going to give a career talk at another local university next week. Hopefully, I’ll be able to attract some good applicants like I did at my last career talk at a leading local university.

Paying Fines

We love our sales! Malaysia must be the only country in the world where we have mega-sales for police fines. Our government has extended the deadline for the 50% discounts on all traffic fines till the 10th of March. I felt odd that I had not received any fines since 2004 but after checking, found out that I had two out-standing fines in my name.

So, I duly went to pay up my fine today. However, I would not even have known about this if people did not make such a fuss about the first dead-line. Then, I found out that our government is planning to implement a system where fines will be given an automatic discount if paid up early but will incur a heavier fine if paid late.

Now, that’s sounds like a good system as it encourages people to pay up early, which is fine until you realise that one does not know that they have received a fine, sometimes for years. Like in this case, I did not know that I had been fined until I actually checked. This means that I would have to pro-actively check on my status regularly. In other words, I need to presume that I am guilty unless proven otherwise.

I hope that the police work out a system of immediately informing someone if they get fined. That way, this system would be fair. Otherwise, people are going to get penalised for police tardiness.