Friday, December 30, 2011

Gibson LP Custom Black Widow





They were a limited run done by Samash of only 25 made. They are Les Paul Customs with the real deal ebony boards.

They are called the black widow on the coa.

Gibson logs the color as "widow burst" in their system. They have red stingers on the back with a black widow spid on the top part of the stinger.

They were produced in 2009 and 10 of them went overseas. A few to Europe, and a few to Australia.


p/s-Some people hated the finishing but I think it's okay since I dig the red diamond inlay!!!!!


The passing of Ed Roman

Date: Thursday Dec. 22, 2011 6:46 PM ET

Ed Roman the guitar builder dead at 61.

Ed always mentioned he always have the last laugh. I believe this time we all should let him have one


 
LAS VEGAS — As a guitar-maker for the stars, Ed Roman found a platform for fierce opinions about his commercially manufactured competition, exhorting musicians to drop what he called "misdirected ignorant brand loyalty."

His own guitars found their way into the hands of everyone from Ted Nugent to British rockers Eric Burdon of The Animals and John Entwistle of The Who. Roman, sometimes likened to a Viking for his red hair, was unafraid to unleash self-described politically incorrect opinions about foreign-made products, chain stores and corporate guitar manufacturers.

But his daughter remembers a soft side to his big, brash personality. She remembers him taking care of her pet hamster, letting the critter roll around in a plastic ball amid an office brimming with expensive guitars.

"He had a very kind, gentle heart," Lindsey Star Roman said.

Roman died Dec. 14 at his home following an illness, his daughter said. He was 61.

"He's going to be remembered with a smile. He made everyone laugh," she told the Associated Press Thursday. "And he's certainly going to be immortalized through his guitars."

Roman, whose critiques found an outlet on the voluminous "Guitar Rants" section of his personal website, started playing the instrument as a youth in Stamford, Conn. His inspiration was Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Ventures, a prolific instrumental combo most active in the 1960s.
Roman worked on motorcycles before turning to guitar building in 1976, because "he always wanted to make something better," his daughter said.

"He was fortunate to meet most of his heroes," she said.

Roman, tired of East Coast winters and observing that "everyone eventually comes to Vegas," moved to Las Vegas in 2000 and opened a large shop there in 2001, according to his daughter.

His time in Sin City brought him -- and his wide range of custom guitars -- close to other famous musicians, including Marie Osmond and country musician Keith Urban.

Also a singer and a bassist, Roman was in the process of recording albums of his own before his unexpected death last week.

Roman's Las Vegas store remains open. In lieu of a funeral, a memorial concert is planned for Roman's birthday, Feb. 24.

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Entertainment/20111222/classic-rock-guitar-builder-ed-roman-dead-61-111222/#ixzz1i00RZxIF

p/s-I know I was kind of late to know the news. I also know the whole guitar world view on this man and past is past, but for me, I gained a lot of information and knowledge from him (through his controversial website).

You might be missed Ed.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Cover solo Konsert Double Trouble antara Joe Wings dan Kid Search

Saya tak pasti samada solo dua gitaris legenda diatas ini mempunyai tajuk khas. Tak silap 'Samar Nan Terang'? Entahlah.Kalau letak tajuk apa pun(e.g lampu kedai RM2 sama terang dengan lampu berpuluh ringgit) , isi muzik yang baik juga akan diingat.

Cover The Loner Mendiang Gary Moore

Instrumen Ibanez RT series dan Roland Mcube R-Fier mode. Dirakam dengan Nokia N70

Friday, December 23, 2011

Mencari artis filem seram dan komedi Hong Kong 80/90an



Saya peminat filem filem seram Hong Kong tahun 80 an hingga ke 90 an. Kita tahukan cerita hantu Cina yang melompat lompat? Selain elemen seram, komedinya yang membuatkan hati terpaut.

Masalahnya ialah kefahaman bahasa, kerana saya tidak memahami Bahasa Cina, yang sehingga sekarang saya tidak tahu beza Kantonis, Mandarin, Hainan dll, maka saya hanya berpandukan pada subtitle yang kita tahu kadang berterabur.

Sekarang saya mula tercari-cari nama pelakon pelakon Hong Kong yang pernah menghiburkan saya dan kita semua dahulu. Cuma dimana mahu bermula?

 Antara foto muka kelakar ngeri yang popular di internet. Siapakah nama beliau? Saya tahu saya pernah nampak lakonan beliau sebelum ini. Cuma tiada hujung pangkal untuk mula mencari profil beliau.


L-R  Richard Ng, Eric Tsang, Charlie Chin, Samo Hung dan Stanley Fung


 Stanley Fung, antara wajah yang familiar buat peminat cerita komedi Hong Kong.

Di internet memang ada, cuma kita mahu bermula daripada mana? Maksud saya katakan saya mahu mencari nama seorang pelakon jelita dalam filem A Chinese Ghost Stories, mungkin mudah kerana tahu tajuk Bahasa Inggerisnya, tapi kalau tajuknya pun tidak tahu? Kes beli CD cetak rompak yang cover tajuk cerita cuma Bahasa Cina saja.


Richard Ng. Seingat saya beliau pernah membintangi sitkom Under One Roof di TV5 Singapura dahulu.

Jat Fei Wong, mungkin wajah komedi beliau yang telah menaikkan beliau.


Kadang kadang bila melakukan carian di internet dan mengetahui pelakon yang diminati telah meninggal dunia, terasa sebak juga. 
Mendiang Bill Tung. Filem beliau yang saya tahu tajuknya ialah Look Out, Officer! lakonan bersama Stephen Chow.


Mendiang David Tsui. Watak antagonis yang kelakar.

Paul Chun. Saya pernah menonton filem lakonan beliau tanpa mengetahui butir bicara dituturkan, nama watak dan nama pelakon sendiri, dahulu. Sekarang dengan Google, jika bernasib baik, mungkin dapat mengetahui maklumat pelakon yang dulunya cuma wajah saja yang saya tahu.

L-R Anthony Chan dan Wuma. Rasanya wajah versatil Wuma lebih banyak kita dapat lihat dalam pelbagai filem. Antony Chan pula saya kurang pasti.


Mendiang Ricky Hui. Ingat watak anak murid Sifu dalam Mr Vampire (lakonan Mendiang Lam Ching Ying). Wajah beliau yang mampu membuatkan kita berasa senang hati dan nak tergelak. Baru saja meninggal pada November lepas.


Pasti ramai yang familiar muka Pendeta Tao diatas.Mendiang Lam Ching Ying. Terkenal dengan francais cerita Mr Vampire. Saya mati mati ingat beliau masih aktif berlakon sampai sekarang. Rupa-rupanya Mendiang dah lama meninggal kerana kanser pada 1997.

Ng Man Tat. Beliau semakin tua jika anda Google. Terkenal dengan filem filem slapstik bersama Stephen Chow. Seorang sepupu tua saya muka sebiji macam beliau.


Mendiang Lydia Shum. Kita pasti akan mengingati watak makcik mulut kecoh dengan fesyen rambut gerbang. Di Singapura dahulu ada sitkom Living with Lydia.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

....And Justice for Jason



This is the original studio recording of Blackened with Jason Newsted's actual bass track re-dubbed at a MUCH higher level.

Two of the tracks from ...And Justice For All have been released as downloadable content for the band simulation game, Rock Band. I managed to [mostly] isolate the bass from those songs, and dubbed it over untouched album versions of the songs. The end result is finally, after nearly 20 years, being able to hear some of AJFA complete with Jason's bass CLEARLY audible in the mix.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

EPSON Stylus TX100 ERROR

1-Semasa di USM tahun 2009 dahulu, saya telah membeli sebuah pencetak semua lengkap (all in one) berjenama Epson model Stylus TX100 di sebuah kedai komputer di Kompleks Bukit Jambul. Mason tak silap nama kedai? Harganya RM245 tak silap, termasuk dakwat.

2-Setelah 2  tahun pembelian saya dapati prestasinya tidak begitu memuaskan. Sering memberikan pelbagai masalah error yang memeningkan kepala saya. Saya cuba hubungi Epson melalui emel dan menghubungi bantuan teknikal mereka. Tetap tidak membantu.

3-Hampir setahun saya membiarkannya kecuali menggunakan pengimbas (scanner) saja.

4-Sekarang saya kembali menggunakan khidmatnya, dan memasang CISS (external ink) untuk penjimatan. Pada bulan pertama ia tidak begitu memberikan masalah. Sekarang ia mula kembali ke perangai lama, error selalu. Saya cuba setting CISS yang dicadangkan pekedai (Mewatech Sdn Bhd) namun tidak membantu sangat.

5-Paling mengecewakan ialah bila cetakkan terhenti diwaktu cetakan, katalah 12 keping muka surat, cetakan terhenti pada cetakan ke lima saja. Terpaksa mengulang cetak semula dan masalah berulang lagi. Ini menyusahkan saya kerana saya perlu mencetak dan membaca jurnal jurnal.

6-Epson tidak akan masuk senarai belian saya lagi pada bila bila masa. Jenama lain juga boleh memasang CISS namun tidak bermasalah. Leceh benar.

p/s- Antara alternatif lain - http://tricks-collections.com/software-epson-resetter-t10-and-tx100/

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Koleksi FB

1-CINTA itu kependekkan 'curahan impian niat terhadap Allah (SWT)'. KASIH itu 'keluarga anak semua itu hadiah (dari Allah SWT). RINDU pula 'redha isteri nambahkan dua (lagi isteri) (arwah Wak Zamrud, 1512) (saya menulis untuk berpesan sedikit dan melawak sedikit)

 2-Teringat Wan saya cerita waktu di Kedah beberapa tahun lepas yang terkena banjir besar dulu. Ada bantuan wang yang diberikan pihak Tokong untuk mangsa banjir.Ada yang tak mahu pergi ambil sebab pihak Tokong beri. Wan saya baca ayat 3,Surah At Talaq-Barangsiapa yang bertakwa kepada Allah nescaya memberinya rezeki dari arah yang tidak disangka-sangka. Dan barangsiapa yang bertawakal kepada Allah, nescaya Allah akan mencukupkan (keperluannya). Sesungguhnya Allah melaksanakan urusan (yang dikehendakinya). Sesungguhnya Allah mengadakan ketentuan bagi tiap-tiap sesuatu. (ini ditulis bila seorang Abang besar merangkap super senior saya di USM dulu yang mempersoalkan bayaran RM500 bantuan Kerajaan baru baru ini)

3-Saya impikan kawan kawan yang sudah berkeluarga atau akan berkeluarga kelak termasuk diri saya, agar mengusahakan buat melahirkan anak anak yang prodigal genius. Negara memerlukan mereka. Dan genius ini tidak semestinya pada lapangan sains teknologi matematik sahaja. Bagaimana genius dalam perniagaan? Bagaimana genius dalam hubungan kemanusiaan? Bagaimana genius dalam penguasaan multi bahasa? Bagaimana genius dalam agama? (ini saya tulis setelah menonton A Beautiful Mind, tentang John Nash seorang genius yang sakit mental)

 4-Perempuan terbaik ialah yang tidak pernah bercinta(sebelum nikah) dengan sesiapa kecuali Allah SWT. Maruah terjaga. Akhlak terpelihara.Penghormatan terbesar.True Bro true (Don 7E). (ini saya tulis sebagai peringatan sedikit keras. Saya berdebat dengan seorang kawan FB (perempuan) tentang pernyataan ini. Kami mencapai kompromi dengan baik. Alhamdulillah)

5-Bagaimana mengekalkan nama anda dikenang sepanjang zaman? Saya ada idea.Dengan nilai USD1 juta sahaja, saya akan menamakan satu sub partikel atom sempena nama anda. Sila PM saya untuk keterangan lanjut. Cepat sebelum harga dinaikkan (Levi Yohanah si Kapitalis) (ini setelah saya membaca Dilbert dan terjumpa di internet sebuah buku kanak kanak Levi The Jew Cockroach)

6-'Yang perlu kau pegang jaga baik ialah isteri kau yang sah.Selain tu macam berjalan atas benang.Kalau dah jumpa yang baik baik, tak payah bercinta diluar nikah.Nikah terus.Baru rock.Baru betul.Baru rock betul betul.Huhuhu!!'(Pakcik Husin Popi) (ini sambungan sebuah pernyataan sebelum ini di wall FB saya  #8 dibawah)

7-Logically, doesn't the existence of thousands of management books show that no one knows what works best? (Seorang Pelajar Post Grad,2011) (ini juga sebagai satu sindiran setelah saya membaca Dilbert)

8-'Pakcik dulu muda muda kuat mabuk dengan perempuan apa semua, sekarang dah tua sakit sakit. Kau jangan begitu Nak. Kalau nak juga mabuklah dengan ilmu yang berguna, dan dengan perempuan biarlah yang solehah.Iaitu kau nikahi dia.' (bertemu Pakcik Husin, bekas penyanyi The Black Platipus) (ini saya taip secara spontan disambil cuba mencantikkan ayat yang ditulis. Ramai kawan FB yang like)

9-Kenapa kita tidak kaya?-Kerana kita tidak memperkayakan diri kita sendiri. Setiap hari kita berusaha dan bekerja hanya untuk memperkayakan orang lain. (Don 7E) (ini saya jumpa di internet)

10- 'Kalau nak lagi laju motor Abang, Abang beli R1'(Midfielder Taman Nilam) (ini sebagai satu gelakkan dan cabaran pada diri sendiri, Kawan dari Pontian tahu kewujudan Taman Nilam)



11- (Dibawah ini teka teki spontan. Waktu saya bermesej dengan seorang kawan perempuan)
  • Kenapa ada orang Melayu minum arak?-Beliau geli makan b@bi (Gerardo Minke) 
  • Orang Arab pandai berbahasa Arab kerana mereka bersekolah agama dirumah (Nurse Bluetooth) 
  • Produk berasaskan kelapa yang tidak digelar kelapa bersama?-Coconut (Bekas MB sebuah negeri) 
  • Kenapa anjing menjelir jelir lidahnya?- Kau dah tak ada kerja ke? Lidah anjing pun diteka teki? (Jose Spaniard)
12-Sesungguhnya kita hanya ditolong kerana kemaksiatan musuh-musuh kita kepada Allah, jika kita juga sama dalam melakukan maksiat, maka adalah mereka lebih utama dari pada kita dalam hal kekuatan, jika kita tidak mengalahkan mereka dengan ketaatan kita, mereka akan mengalahkan kita dengan kekuatan mereka. (Khalifah Umar Abdul Aziz)

13-Saya mahu percaya yang terbaik untuk diri sendiri sebelum mati ialah keluar melihat dunia. (ini saya jumpa di internet)

14-Kita hebat macam mana pun. Semualah. Dalaman luaran. Ideologi, konseptual, method, kritis, teknikaliti etc. Allah SWT pandang 1 aja. Takwa. (Lebai Al Jefri) (ingatan untuk diri sendiri)

15- Rakyat jangan buat baik sangat dengan parti politik.Biar parti politik yang buat baik dengan rakyat. (Don 7E) (bagus juga Kerajaan dan Pembangkang bergaduh, rakyat untung)

16- Daripada Ibn ‘Umar katanya, Rasulullah s.a.w. tidak pernah meninggalkan doa-doa ini: “Ya Allah, aku memohon dari Engkau kemudahan dan kesejahteraan dalam agamaku dan duniaku, keluargaku dan hartaku. Ya Allah tutupkanlah auratku, berilah keamanan kepadaku dari ketakutan, jagalah aku dari hadapan, belakang, kiri dan kananku serta dari atasku. Aku berlindung dengan Engkau dari aku dibinasakan dari arah atas dan dari arah bawahku (ditelan oleh bumi). (Musnad Ahmad, no: 4785, Abu Dawud, no: 5074, al-Nasa`i, no: 5544, Ibn Majah, no: 3871)

17-Saya tersenyum sedikit dan mengangguk kebenaran membaca Wall FB kawan punya kawan yang berbunyi lebih kurang begini- 'Aku hairan dengan perempuan yang tulis kat FB beritahu dok kesepianlah, keseoranganlah, tak ada lelaki temanlah apa lah. Apa Mak Bapak korang tak cukup beri kasih sayang ke?' Kawan punya kawan ini adalah seorang perempuan.Serap sikit pesanan ini jika mahu. (ini saya taip semula setelah membaca posting kawan punya kawan di FB. Benar pesanan ini)

 18-Pengurusan haji Malaysia antara yang terbaik tapi pengurusan wang zakat rasanya tidak begitu cemerlang. (ini 1 perbezaan yang nyata)

 19-Saya percaya tidak ada orang yang mengatasi orang lain (kecuali takwa) dan saya (dalam mendidik hati) tidak pula lebih baik berbanding orang lain. (ingatan untuk diri sendiri)

20-Firman Allah SWT yang bermaksud : Berdoalah kamu kepadaKu, nescaya aku mustajab untuk kamu”.( Surah Ghafir ayat 60)

21-Mencarut dalam bahasa apa pun- Hispanic ke Sanskrit ke Benua Mu ke. Tetap mencarut (Don 7E) (ini ditaip setelah usai perlawanan bolasepak. Ada yang mencarut di FB)

22-Cara mudah melukis potret ialah minta foto subjek memakai cermin mata gelap yang besar besar kantanya. Maka anda cuma perlu menumpukan pada hidung,mulut dan lain-lain selain mata. Nasib baik 15 minit sudah siap.Selamat mencuba (Al-Hendrix) (ini satu tips melukis potret setelah saya terbaca tips seorang kartunis/karikatur Duku )

Perkembangan terbaru

1-Kita mencari melalui pembacaan. Menyambungkan sambungan sambungan dotted line menjadi panduan kita mencari 1 arah terbaik atau yang kita rasakan semaksimum itulah sebelum sauh dilabuh kan. Kadang terlalu banyak membaca selain menambah ilmu turut menyemarakkan keliru.

2-Dalam masa hujung Oktober hingga hampir penghujung Disember ini saya cuba mencari melalui pembacaan apakah yang sesuai atau apakah masalah yang elok di bukukan saya dalam hasil penemuan penelitian 3 ke 5 tahun mendatang.

3-Tiada perkembangan terbaru. Itulah kejujuran.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

2000

I still remember a story, one of my sweetest memory, was in 2000. Back in SMKDPB, one of the premier school in district of Pontian, Johor.

Our Bahasa Melayu teacher, Cikgu Faizah Sood (or Fauziah? or the other name? Sorry Cikgu), asked the whole class to write an essay. I forgot the precise requirement but basically about our experienced in a bank robbery. Yes. From the perspective of a bank customer.

Most of my classmate wrote basically the same story line.

They become a hero or heroin for the girls, by calling the police or helped to negotiate with the robbery or whatever. Heroic action cliche. Boring. I wanted something different, as always.

For me, soon as I knew what Cikgu wanted us to write, I with my dyslexic kind of thinking just started to write the essay without no earlier planning. No basic structure, no important point of whatsoever. Just a spontaneous writing.

Write write write.

About a week later, Cikgu Faizah spoke to the whole class, she praised me with my non cliche essay and make me an example to follow (in a good way). The whole class in awe while I just sat in my chair and........Blur. Tho grammatically mine was not so excellent, and the same cases with the whole class.

My story line was, basically, like this- me and dad with the other people in the bank just follow what the robbers said, that is to lay down on the floor and never ever dare to move or got shot right on our skull. Perfect. Plus why must we risk our life?  I know the bank must got insured. Then the robbers left.

Suddenly, some one said this, the bank security guard- ''Ehh kenapa semua baring dilantai ni? Apa dah jadi?' (Ehh why did you all laying on the floor? What happened?)

That particular guard was using the restroom when the robbery took place. That's it. Simple as that, while most of my classmate wrote that they got praised from the cop, family etc for their bravery etc, I wrote a different end one.



Think differently is the key word here. Start from that moment I know what I want. Be yourself.

Smile and the mystery of it

Meet Thy (thesis) Supervisor

Imagine you met your SV and he just smile at you. What is that smile for? I mean why did the smile  stay for the whole meeting?

Tho you prepare for the meeting, it is not a guarantee you walked out 100% as before you enter the SV's room.


p/s-I am not mocking up my SV, in case you feel like that. My SV is super cool (to provide me  a professor level room and etc).  This is just what we call satire. Or whatever you like.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Mereka yang tahu, tidak tahu dan memandai mandai

1-Pengajaran saya terima selepas usai perjumpaan bersama SV dan senior PhD saya tengahari hari ini ialah jangan biarkan skop kajian berkembang luas jauh jauh. Hingga menimbulkan kekeliruan.

2-Semakin banyak membaca sepatutnya semakin luas pengetahuan. Dalam kes saya, semakin banyak jurnal dan bahan bacaan dibaca semakin banyak kekeliruan. Mudahnya-To cover all bases is impossible in PhD with the constraints of time, money  and etc.

3-Saya juga perlu menilai semula samada pembacaan saya itu benar tepatkah menepati kajian saya? Kata kunci yang ditemui tidak semestinya yang saya perlukan dalam satu satu jurnal. Trickiest part?

4-SV saya meminta saya cuti berfikir panjang panjang dan cari 1 topik yang firm untuk saya ketengahkan pada perjumpaan akan datang. Senior PhD saya juga dalam konsep yang sama. Take it easy.

5-Antara kesilapan saya ialah meminta pendapat mereka yang sebenarnya tidak berkait walaupun dalam bidang yang sama; penyelidikan. Macam macam diperkatakan dan saya tidak menjaring informasi diberikan mereka ini. Saya tidak salahkan mereka kerana saya 'memerlukan' kesalahan ini. Agar tidak berulang.

6-Senior PhD juga meminta saya mengenalpasti adakah data yang dikumpulkan kelak mudah diperolehi? Dalam bidang kami yang tidak merumahkan makmal, kami akan berhadapan dengan kerenah individu, birokrasi dan kerahsiaan. Maka mudahkah mendapatkan data begitu?Critical thinking.

7-Masuk gear 2.

Paint 5 or 6 ? (I lost count already)


Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Proposal tesis adalah kata lain untuk sebuah kontrak

A thesis proposal is a contract

Of the three official milestones1 in Ph.D. school--qualifying exams, thesis proposal and thesis defense--the trickiest is the thesis proposal. 
Qualifying exams are just exams. Students can beat them using the same tactics they used for exams as undergrads.

A proper thesis defense should be a rigorous formality. No advisor should ever let her student stand for a defense unless the advisor is convinced the student will pass.

Thesis proposals, on the other hand, rarely pass without an objection requiring a modification to the proposal.

Students tend to invert the importance of the proposal and the defense: they see the proposal as the formality and the defense as the challenge.

Faculty, however, treat proposals like contracts. When faculty sign off on a proposal, we are giving up some of our rights to object later on. We are agreeing that if a student does X, Y and Z, as outlined in the proposal, then we shall grant a Ph.D.

We are never going to yield such rights passively.

All good thesis proposals contain two ingredients: a clearly-defined thesis, and a specific plan for demonstrating that thesis.

Everything else in the proposal (related work, prior work, challenges) exists to support the plausibility of the thesis and the plan.

Done properly, a good proposal grants immunity against remarks like
  • I thought you said you were going to do X,
  • I'd like you to also do Y before I sign off, and
  • So what?
during a defense. A thesis proposal is an opportunity for students to obtain protection and assurance. It should restore some of the certainty lost in the middle years of a Ph.D. Too few students take full advantage of this opportunity.
If you need advice on how to do a thesis proposal, read on for guidance.

 Thesis statement

 

A thesis is a single sentence.

More precisely, it is an active, declarative, defensible sentence.

The thesis is what the dissertation will exert its mass to defend.

The thesis proposal document and the proposal presentation should place the thesis statement toward the front, so that while reading and listening, the committee can determine whether the thesis is defensible, and whether the proposed research, if successful, would constitute a valid defense of the thesis.

When a student doesn't provide an explicit thesis statement, each committee member will infer a thesis statement that aligns with his or her prejudices, and then, some day, the student will have to defend six theses instead of one.

My advice is to make the statement as short as possible: how much fat can you trim from it before it's too general too defend with your work?

The thesis statement answers the question, "What did humanity learn as a consequence of this dissertation?"

It's useful to carefully define each term in a thesis statement after it's given, just to make sure the student and the committee are in total agreement about what the thesis means.


Example: My thesis

 

My thesis statement was, "Environment analysis of higher-order languages is novel, feasible and useful."
This thesis segmented my dissertation into four parts: related work, theory, experimentation and application.
  1. Related work defends novelty.
  2. Theory and experimentation defend feasibility.
  3. Application defends usefulness.
My thesis statement doesn't say anything about what technical mechanisms I used to prove environment analysis feasible. (I developed abstract frame strings, abstract counting and abstract garbage collection to support my thesis. But, those were just the means. Environment analysis was the end.)

The weakest part of my thesis statement is the claim of usefulness.

Of course, even if I took out that claim, my committee would still ask the questions, "So what?"

Putting it in my thesis forced me to explicitly defend against that question.

Utility is subjective, which meant I had to find an application of environment analysis for each of my committee members.

Ultimately, I detailed 16 distinct applications of environment analysis, so that if a committee member wanted to argue it wasn't useful, they had to argue that all sixteen applications were useless.
None of my committee members were willing to take up the challenge.

The modifier novel is also unnecessary. Committees will look for novelty whether it is claimed implicitly or explicitly. Again, putting it in my thesis forced me to defend novelty in my dissertation.

Plan

 

Students need to realize that a proposal is a contract.

The plan details the conditions of that contract.

If a student words the plan right and gets it approved, her defense will go smoothly.

If she leaves the plan vague or inspecific, she leaves herself vulnerable to the committee's interpretation of her plan.

Nothing of importance should ever be left to the mercy of a committee.

A good plan contains a fictional schedule--a list of remaining milestones and anticipated dates of completion. The dates don't matter all that much. They just have to be there. Relative spacing between dates signals the estimated size of the challenge for each milestone.

If the plan contains a claim to be validated, it needs to explain how the student will conduct validation of that claim.

A good plan also contains contingencies. What if a claim ends up being false? What if it turns out to be infeasible in time or in cost to perform the evaluation of one of the claims? A good plan is not a sequence, but a tree. The leaves of the tree form a spectrum from "best possible outcome, give me a Ph.D. and a professorship" at one end to "back to the drawing board" at the other.

A plan should contain the possibility of failure.

Real research is inherently unpredictable, and failure is always a possibility. If failure is not possible, it must not be research.

The proposal needs to create the impression that failure is unlikely.

A good plan also provides the criteria for recognizing the completion of a milestone, e.g., submitted for publication, accepted for publication, survey completed, chapter written.

Supporting ingredients

 

The remainder of a proposal exists to support the thesis and the plan. The other three components in a good proposal are (1) a survey of related work, (2) a summary of prior work by the student and (3) a review of research challenges.

A survey of related work supports the novelty of the thesis.

A summary of prior work gives the committee a sense of what the student is capable of, which supports the plausibility of both the thesis and the plan.

A review of the research challenges and proposed circumvention strategies supports the intellectual merit of the thesis.

Good proposals give the impression that between one-third and two-thirds of the work remains to be completed.

Thesis proposals claiming that all of the work is already completed will be interpreted (rightly or wrongly) as arrogant, and trigger intense scrutiny.

It's important to propose before all of the work is finished.

If it's truly all done, a student should pretend the last third of it isn't.

Wielding the proposal

 

At a student's defense, she should put the thesis statement up at the start, and then circle the path through the plan she ended up taking.

Psychologically, it's going to be hard for the committee to say she must do more work after they're reminded of the plan they agreed to.

Pragmatics

 

A good thesis proposal document can be structured like a proposal for NSF funding: a one-page proposal summary, a fifteen-page proposal description and an extensive bibliography.

Proposals longer than fifteen pages are unlikely to be read in full.

The presentation itself should be about 30 to 45 minutes. As proposals drag on, busy committee members get crankier. Cranky faculty members revert to their basest instinct: being argumentative.

Running long is a well-tested strategy for having extra conditions placed on a proposal.


As a rule of thumb, each 5 minutes past an hour adds 3 weeks worth of work to a Ph.D.

http://matt.might.net/articles/advice-for-phd-thesis-proposals/

Jamming 2009

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Paint IV


SATU


1-Seorang pelajar PhD telah menilai semula nilai angka nombor 1 baru baru ini. Pemerhatian beliau berdasarkan kerja kerja yang dilakukan beliau. Beliau membahagikan kerja tersebut kepada- light, medium, heavy dan very heavy. Semuanya untuk 1 kajian 1 tesis.

2-Setakat ini kerja yang dibahagikan kepada kategori-light, mengikut pelajar tersebut ialah memikirkan cara cara terbaik memanjangkan lagi tempoh pinjaman buku-buku perpustakaan. Hal ini kerana pelajar cuba mengoptimumkan nilai pembangunan pembinaan perpustakaan yang dijangka ratusan juta. Banyak lagi peluang untuk peningkatan tahap profesionalisma di perpustakaan.


3-Untuk kategori medium, agak mendominasi. Antara kerja kategori ini ialah  memasuki website perpustakaan universiti sendiri dengan khidmat laman proksi kerana cara konvensional tidak berhasil. Telah ditanya pada Jurutera I.T- Dilbert berkenaan punca dan penyelesaian hal ini. Jawapan diterima ialah Dilbert menyalahkan pekerja disebelah cubicle beliau. Rasionalnya menurut Dilbert pada masa dahulu beliau pernah memikirkan dan cuba menyelesaikan masalah yang lebih kurang sama dengan sistem HR syarikat beliau (kerana mahukan kenaikkan gaji lebih pada masa itu), namun pekerja disebelah cubicle beliau telah tidak sengaja terpadamkan BIOS seluruh komputer pejabat sewaktu belajar melayari E Bay. Duh.


4-Antara kerja kategori-medium ini yang lain ialah mencari artikel daripada jurnal jurnal, dikategorikan kemudian dicetak. Setakat ini ukuran ketebalan artikel yang dicetak mungkin melebihi ketebalan 4 bungkus kertas cetakan IK Yellow 450 sheets. Ini tidak termasuk membaca dan mencabar isi artikel tersebut.

5-Kategori heavy ialah berjumpa, berbincang dan menerangkan pada Penyelia, dan 2 senior PhD. Tahap mereka mereka ini umpama langit dan bumi berbanding pelajar tadi. Kategori ini juga merupakan cabaran terbesar sekali.

6-Very heavy pula ialah bertarung nyawa disepanjang Jalan Kluang Batu Pahat setiap hari waktu mahu ke universiti. Pelajar meletakkan ini sebagai kerja kerana jika ini tidak dilakukan maka kerja kerja lain tidak dapat disiapkan. Kerja ini tidak memberi tambah nilai pada tesis yang dihasilkan namun perlu dilakukan.

7-Tahap penggunaan jalan ini adalah sangat tinggi hingga pernah kedengaran kenyataan jalan ini adalah antara jalan paling bahaya dalam Asia. Aduan telah ditampal pada Wall Facebook Perdana Menteri dan Menteri Kerja Raya, terutama keperluan pemasangan lampu untuk kegunaan pada waktu malam. Ini kerana jalan tersebut sudahlah 9 tahun masih tidak siap-siap, ia gelap gelita dan banyak pula halangan-halangan daripada kerja pembinaan yang dijalankan seperti-kon pembahagi jalan plastik/batu, pasir kerikil debu, jentera jentera pembinaan, bahan buangan pembinaan dan lain lain.

8-Semua ini demi 1 penyelidikan menghasilkan 1 tesis berseorangan. Berpeluh juga rasanya. Ya Allah Ya Allah Ya Allah, bantulah.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Failed switch


1-Or broken switch? The on and off button of my relic Nokia N70. Just this morning the switch refused to function. Great. Before the phone automatically reset my memory card. There it goes-all my photos, messages etc. Back to zero.

2-Then I Google the repair places in Parit Raja. There is it.-Hour Teleshop, very close to my place in KKTM Sri Gading, the rented room I stay now. There is also one in Taman Kristal, heck I do not know where Taman Kristal is. Off to Hour Teleshop in Taman Universiti. The location is like this, if you from Bandar Penggaram or BP, you will pass Taman Universiti first, then KKTM Sri Gading then UTHM. Be careful since Jalan Kluang-BP is still under construction, already  9 years passed since it got started. Legend. I enrolled in SMTBP in 2002, the road was under construction, I enrolled in USM in 2006, the road was still under construction, now I enrolled in UTHM in 2011, the road is still under construction. Government sure know how to rule the country.

3-Back to the dead switch, the repairer diagnose the problem should be the switch. I let him checked first while I browse the shop. Looking for dual sim phone. Nokia C3 looks attractive. Second hand unit. RM3##. The new one offer by Nokia, not the same model,  with dual sim is RM350 if I am not mistaken. Hmm.

4-After 5 minutes, the repairer handed me the phone. Problem solved. We trade RM25 from hand to hand. RM25 is quite expensive? I am not sure. Value is subjective from people to people. In my case as long as it can be repair, proceed.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Biasa Luar Biasa

1-Betul juga. Kalau ambil keadaan di sekolah, murid paling rebel itulah yang selalu jadi sebutan. Ingat kata- publisiti itu baik atau buruk, ia tetap publisiti. Murid yang skema setahun dua tahun bolehlah diingat. Kalau jumpa dengan Cikgu sekolah sedekad dua dekad kemudian, atau 5 tahun saja, silap silap Cikgu kata- 'Eh, awak kawan si Kanaan yang nakal waktu sekolah dulu tu ke?' atau 'Rasa ingat-ingat lupa lah. Ayah awak kerja apa?'

2- Skema membosankan. Tapi siapa berani menyatakan? Saya suka kata-kata-' kau dah tau tu undang undang, rules. Kau langgarlah.' Apa guna kita belajar eksperimen disekolah dulu kalau kita cuma ikut manual aja sekarang. Pandukan pada buku semata aja? Besar skop ini kalau nak cakap. Saya cakap dalam ruang lingkup saya saja. Had jauh mata melihat dan had dengar telinga terima.

3-Kalau kalau tak berani, diam. Itu selemah lemah iman. Kalau berani, anda jadi ikon. Darah tumpah ke bumi jadi pasir pasir merah.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Walking memory lane

2006


One night, around 12 pm, in Universiti Super Malaysia.

(Via SMS)

'Hi'
'Who is this? Where did you got my number?'
'From a friend. Don't ask who he is.How do you do?'
' I do not have a male friend yet here in USM right now that have my number. Who are you? Fine. Thank you.'
'Lets just say that I wanted to be a friend of you'
'Ok. Who ever you are. But later you must tell me where did you got my number. I wanted to sleep now.Very very tired. Good night'
'Good night. Sweet dream'


 Few days later.

'Hi'
'Hi. It is 'you' right? Now answer my question-who gave you my number?Please answer or I will never ever reply your message again.'
'Not relevant. Is this how you make a friend?'
'No. But this is my first time doing this. And you seems to be the first one to be treated like this.'
'I just wanted to be a friend. Honestly'
'Then answer my question. Honesty is the best policy like they said.'

'No. I rather not revealed from whom I got your number. It's okay if you wanted to act cocky like this'(deleted message)


'Err...I found it myself..'
'There you go. Hi. My name is Zann. And you?(don't do that again!!)'
'Err..I thought we will never talk again'
'Okay, if you insist'
'My name is  MF. Nice to know you.Sorry...'











Sunday, December 4, 2011

Saya jumpa, saya baca dan saya kongsi

The U.S. should truly fix its educational system

For the past month, we have all marveled at the life of Steve Jobs, the adopted son of working-class parents, who dropped out of college and became one of the great technologists and businessmen of our time.

How did he do it? He was, of course, an extraordinary individual, and that explains much of his success, but his environment might also have played a role. Part of the environment was education. And it is worth noting that Jobs got a great secondary education. The school he attended, Homestead High in Cupertino, Calif., was a first-rate public school that gave him a grounding in both the liberal arts and technology.

It did the same for Steve Wozniak, the more technically oriented co-founder of Apple Computer, whom Jobs met at that same school.

In 1972, the year Jobs graduated, California’s public schools were the envy of the world. They were generally rated the finest in the country, well funded and well run, with excellent teachers.

These schools were engines of social mobility that took people like Jobs and Wozniak and gave them an educational grounding that helped them rise.

Today, California’s public schools are a disaster, beset by dysfunction and disrepair. They rank at the bottom of the country, just as the U.S. now sits at the bottom of the industrialized world by most measures of educational achievement.

The World Economic Forum ranks the U.S.’s educational system 26th in the world, well behind those of countries like Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada and Singapore. In science and math, we score even worse.

We’ve been talking about America’s education decline for three decades now, so much so that we are numbed by the discussion. But the consequences of that crisis are only just becoming fully apparent.

As American education has collapsed, the median wages of the American worker have stagnated, and social mobility—the beating heart of the American dream—has slowed to a standstill. Education is and always has been the fastest way up the socio economic ladder. And the payoff from a good education remains evident even in this weak recovery.

The unemployment rate for college graduates is just 4%, but for high school dropouts it is 14%. If you drop out of high school—and the U.S. has a 25% dropout rate—you will have a depressed standard of living for the rest of your life.

The need for better education for most Americans has never been more urgent. While we have been sleeping, the rest of the world has been upgrading its skills. Countries in Europe and Asia have worked hard to increase their college-graduation rates, while the U.S.’s — once the world’s highest — has flatlined. Other countries have focused on math and science, while in America degrees have proliferated in “fields” like sports exercise and leisure studies.

Bill Gross, the head of Pimco, the world’s largest bond fund, sums it up in no uncertain terms: “Our labor force is too expensive and poorly educated for today’s marketplace.” There are two variables here: our educational levels, which are low, and our wages, which are high. Either we will raise our educational level or markets will lower our wages.

How to do it? Well, there is one simple, time-tested method. Work harder. Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Malcolm Gladwell found that behind many supposedly natural- born talents like musical ability lay lots of practice—by his calculations, about 10,000 hours of practice.

U.S. schoolchildren spend less time in school than their peers abroad. They have shorter school days and a shorter school year. Children in South Korea will spend almost two years more in school than Americans by the end of high school. Is it really so strange that they score higher on tests?

If South Korea teaches the importance of hard work, Finland teaches another lesson. Finnish students score near the very top on international tests, yet they do not follow the Asian model of study, study and more study.

Instead they start school a year later than in most countries, emphasize creative work and shun tests for most of the year. But Finland has great teachers, who are paid well and treated with the same professional respect that is accorded to doctors and lawyers.

They are found and developed through an extremely competitive and rigorous process. All teachers are required to have master’s degrees, and only 1 in 10 applicants is accepted to the country’s teacher-training programs. The contrast with the U.S. is stark. Half of America’s teachers graduated in the bottom third of their college class.

Bill Gates has spent about $5 billion trying to research and reform American education. I asked him, if he were running a school district and could wave a magic wand, what he would do. His response: hire the best teachers.

That’s what produces the best results for students, more than class size or money or curriculum. “So the basic research into great teaching, that’s now become our biggest investment,” he says. One study estimates that if black students had a top-quartile teacher rather than a bottom-quartile teacher four years in a row, that would be enough to close the black-white test-score gap.

There are many more ideas, many of them worthwhile and worth trying, but you can get lost in the details of the education debate. These two seem simple—work more and get better teachers. Yet implementing them is anything but simple. They bump up against an education system that is deeply resistant to change and teachers’ unions that jealously guard their prerogatives.

All the specific measures that would allow students to work more and good teachers to be identified and rewarded— more days, longer hours, merit pay—are mostly opposed by the teachers’ unions and other guardians of the status quo.

When you get depressed by the obstacles to reforming the educational bureaucracy, you can get excited by the meta-reformers on the outside who are trying to revolutionize the system.

Take Sal Khan, who accidentally created what might well be a new way of teaching. Seven years ago, the MIT graduate was helping his cousin, who lived across the U.S., with her math homework.

When scheduling got difficult, a friend suggested he put the diagrams and equations he had drawn on YouTube so she could access them. Five years later, Khan has produced 3,000 videos teaching mostly math and science that have been viewed 80 million times!

But the real revolution has been in the classroom. Last year, Los Altos, Calif., decided to use the Khan Academy videos and software in its public-school classrooms. Doing so turns the educational model on its head.

In the traditional method, students sit in class and receive information from their teacher while they busily take notes—a passive process that wastes valuable classroom time. They do the most challenging work—solving problems—at home without help.

Under the new system, they watch the Khan Academy videos at home and solve problems in class, where the teacher’s talents can be put to use most fruitfully.

In addition, students can learn at their own pace — rewatching videos—until they actually understand the material. The early results show huge leaps in student skills. Technology is being used to create a customized, interactive education that is both novel and powerful.

The reason that I am so taken by the Khan Academy—other than that I have used its videos with my 12-year-old son—is that it is a quintessentially American innovation, a new way of thinking about education.

I went through the Asian educational system, which is now so admired. It gave me an impressive base of knowledge and taught me how to study hard and fast. But when I got to the U.S. for college, I found that it had not trained me that well to think.

American education at its best teaches you how to solve problems, truly understand the material, question authority, think for yourself and be creative. It teaches you to learn what you love and to love learning. These are incredibly important values, and they are why the U.S. has been able to maintain an edge in creative industries and innovation in general.

The U.S. should truly fix its educational system by emphasizing the basics—like hard work—again but also by renewing its distinctly American character. We will succeed not by becoming more Asian but by becoming, as the writer James Fallows put it once, “more like us.” That’s what made America the world’s most dynamic society—and it can make it so again. 
 
Source- http://mummyrokiah.blogspot.com/

KAWAN

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