tzywen.com

Moving On

I will no longer be updating this Php-Nuke site. I have switched over to Wordpress and will be blogging at tzywen.com/wp. You should be redirected if you enter tzywen.com into the address bar. All the old content here will not be relinked so there is no need to update links or your bookmarks.

See you on the other side!

Extreme DIY

There's a McGuyver in everyone of us. Here are some good and (mostly) bad examples:

Circular saw. Honestly I have no idea what this can be used for. The fan doesn't produce enough torque to cut through most materials.

DIY heating. This probably worked well to circulate the heat from the oven around the room.

I'm surprised this scaffolding even stayed up long enough to be photographed.

Missing fridge door? No problem. Just put a cover over it. The downside? Poor insulation, high electricity bill.

This is one of my favourite. A very cool use for scrappers.

Simple but elegant solution. Pump water through a burning can to heat up the water and create a hot tub. You can even control the temperature by adjusting the intensity of the fire!

No comment.

This would work better if the bucket in the center was replaced with an actual pivot.

Diving board. If he can afford the pool, why not a simple diving board?

Not sure how effective this would be. Without proper wheels, the car won't be able to push through the thick snow.

Well at least the kid has got a safety helmet on.

Stone club for those annoying kangaroos (2:40) on the green.

Portable toilet with natural waste disposal system.

Original battery doesn't last long enough? No worries, just put an additional external battery. From the looks of it, it's a lithium ion 18650 battery, probably with about 2000mah of capacity. That's more than twice the capacity of the original battery, which will give you double the talk time!

Safety razor, NOT.

Bicycle handle flamethrower. Will come in handy during those zombie apocalypse scenarios when you have to do with whatever parts that you can lay your hands on.

Ladder for easier access to the above wiring.

Always forgetting to turn off your headlights and draining your battery in the process? With this new headlight system, flat batteries are a thing of the past!

DIY boat gets you across watery terrain in comfort.

Home water slide: the ultimate toy. That is until somebody gets hurt.

Recapping

Haven't written a proper post for the longest time. Reason being I'm very busy with exams and it's my final year so no more playing around. Time to be dead serious. Few of us have been called up for oral already so my turn's probably just around the corner. Just hope my Boeing 777 type course finishes before the dreaded phone call arrives from DCA.

I can't say studying is fun, because I'm sure there are more things that are fun to do. Like holidaying. But going through the type course has exposed me to many new things. Logics for one. The aircraft is designed to be safe even if several systems fail. The computer logic will isolate the failed system and make sure the plane functions as normally as possible without the defective part. It's so amazing that it's almost human. I can almost envision the AIMS (airplane information management system) computer taking over the world with so much logic, control and inputs going through it. Something like Eagle Eye.

So the bulk of the designer's job is not to make sure the plane looks nice, but to incorporate numerous fail safe designs into a plane to ensure that in the unlikely event of a system failure, the plane will still be able to land safely. And yes, there are so many fail safes that even I can't remember them all.

And not only do I need to learn how they work, I need to think of how they will cease work and what are the possible failures and what will result from the failures. I'm constantly thinking about how to make a plane crash so I can prevent that from happening. Ironic isn't it.

Also been doing a lot of jamming recently. Been spending way way way too much time at the Nikonian Academy's "jamming studio". We recorded a few songs but I'm afraid more practice is needed before I dare to post them up. I don't have them with me anyways. But just to let you know, we have some excellent drummers and vocalists!

I've also gone back to do what I love best: systems design. I've always love solving problems because I love coming up with solutions. It can be a simple and easy solution, or it can be complex but elegant. Or failsafe and boring. Tackling them gives you immense satisfaction.

My last project involved some logics so I had the chance to use my long neglected PIC programmer. 8 years ago when I started learning the PIC, I never would have thought how useful that 18-legged piece of plastic and silicone (16F84/16F88) would be.

Current projects involve interfacing my recently installed air conditioning unit with Twitter so I can turn it on or off by sending it Tweets. Will also be upgrading the CarPC. Now it mainly functions as an entertainment and navigation computer. I want it to help me more with driving, mainly to maximize the car's potential and to replace the analog gauges on the dash. Digitized engine information will help me shift better and have an advantage because I will then know which gear I will need to downshift to for maximum power without redlining the engine.

For safety, I want cameras all round to eliminate blind spots, and extra sensors to detect if there are cars when I'm switching lanes. And infrared cameras for driving at night without headlights on. Unfortunately since I don't drive a drive-by-wire car, I cannot make the car drive itself. If not, a distance sensor in front of the car will predict crashes before they happen, and applying brakes to avoid a collision, making this car virtually uncrashable. Unless someone rams you from behind.

So much to do. But exams are nearing so I'll need to put these on hold for a few months. Keep checking back, will be posting project progress from time to time, and hopefully write more of these posts. Will definitely help jog my memory 5 to 10 years down the road.

Transparent Nissan 370Z

I seriously wonder how much it cost to build such a car. Every part was converted to perspex and they had to build a working engine with real internal oil paths.

Although this advertisement is meant to show how good Shell's engine oil is, there isn't actually a lot of difference between the different brands of engine oil.

The most important thing to remember about engine oil is to ensure that there is enough oil by checking the dipstick regularly. An engine that has run out of oil can seize very fast due to the lack of lubricant and rapid build-up of heat.

MD11 FEDEX at Narita investigation

I got this article from virtualmystic and I thought it would be interesting to share:

Japanese investigators have detailed the hard landing and roll-over sequence which destroyed a FedEx Boeing MD-11 freighter at Tokyo Narita a year ago.

In a progress report into the 23 March 2009 accident the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) has released surveillance camera images showing that the aircraft, while landing on runway 34L, initially bounced after touching down on its main gear.

It touched down a second time but bounced again, higher, then pitched down and contacted the runway with its nose-gear, then its main gear. The impact fractured the left wing, between the engine and the fuselage, and the first signs of fire erupted before the aircraft - with its right wing still intact - rolled inverted.

The aircraft was consumed by fire. It had 28,000lt of fuel on board, as well as 400kg of flammable cargo, and was completely destroyed. Neither of the two pilots survived. The captain had accumulated a total of 8,132hr flight-time while the first officer had 5,248hr.

In its update the JTSB shows that preceding aircraft had faced turbulent winds during the approach to Narita. A Nippon Cargo Airlines flight landing immediately before the FedEx MD-11F informed the tower that final approach conditions were "really rough", with winds "plus-minus 15kt below 1,000[ft]".

Two minutes before the crash the tower controller cleared the FedEx jet to land on 34L and advised of winds from 320° at 29kt but added: "Maximum 36, minimum 17."

Some 40sec later cockpit-voice recorder information captured the captain possibly referring to a turbulent approach - "Yee haw, ride 'em cowboy" - after the jet descended below 1,000ft.

After the MD-11F's central aural warning system called the height at 500ft, the captain stated: "Cleared to land 34L, stable." Four seconds later, the first officer commented: "Sheee."

The JTSB's update does not indicate any further comment from the crew before the impacts at touchdown.

It states that the aircraft landed at 166kt. As it bounced the jet's pitch reduced to level flight and the aircraft contacted the runway harder, with an impact of 2.21g.

The MD-11F bounced into the air a second time, pitching to 6.7° nose-up and reaching a height of 16ft before pitching to 4.9° nose-down. The third impact registered 3.06g and resulted in serious structural wing damage in the region of the left-hand main gear.

JTSB investigators have yet to reach conclusions on the crash. The broad dynamics of the accident sequence parallels that of several events in which MD-11 aircraft have rolled over after a heavy landing.

06:48:20: Touchdown on main gear

06:48:21: Initial bounce

06:48:22: Second touchdown at reduced pitch

06:48:24: Second bounce and pitch-up

06:48:25: MD-11F reaches height of 16ft

06:48:27: Pitch-down and nose-gear contact

06:48:27: Heavy main-gear impact, structural damage

06:48:29: Fracture and separation of left wing, initial fire

06:48:28-06:48:31: MD-11F rolls inverted to the left

A bounce during landing on a small plane may get you laughed at, but a bounce on a commercial airliner may get you killed. A bounce happens when the descent rate is too fast. When the plane touches the runway, the large impact creates an opposite reaction which lifts the plane up. At this point, the speed of the plane has probably been reduced to below its stall speed. So after bouncing high up in the air, there is not enough lift to gently put the plane down on the runway a second time, and that's when you have a crash landing.

There I Fixed It

Creativity and ingenuity is what makes us humans special. The ability to create, modify and improve ensures our survival. Below are fine examples of those aforementioned abilities:

No jacuzzi? No worries. Get a tub and light a fire under it and you'll have an instant hot tub.

Need something to replace that missing door? That will work.

DIY de-mister: for cars that don't come with them.

Well, it is a wheel anyways.

No more missing toothpaste! Or toothbrush.

Multi-purpose drill. Beats eggs in seconds.

Pringles air duct.

Broken toilet ball float? Here's the "manual override".

Toilet paper hanger.

Liquor bottles double up as shift knobs. And I think there's an anti-theft device in the form of handcuffs.

Lamp protector.

DIY badge.

The art of getting better reception.

An improvement over the door we saw above. This one has got a little lock installed too!

DIY headlights. I sure hope they can control this from the inside. But look on the bright side, even if they leave their lights on they can still start their car afterwards.

Downloadr: Download Photos from Flickr

If you ever had to download a batch of photos from Flickr, you'll know that there isn't a batch downloading function built into Flickr. You would have to go photo by photo and download them manually. I recently wanted to transfer some of my vacation photos from a Flickr set to my Facebook so I went out and I found the perfect tool: Downloadr.

Displaying my Australia trip set.

The nice thing about Downloadr is that I can search by "sets" and download all my photos from that set. This is very useful for me since I usually keep my photos in sets. I can also search by keyword, user, group and favorites.

Just select which photos you want and Downloadr will download them for you automatically.

This has saved me tremendous amount of time and I probably won't bother getting those photos onto Facebook if it wasn't for Downloadr. So if you have tons of photos on Flickr and have no idea how to get them downloaded and sorted out, here's your magic bullet.

Macro on iPhone 2G

iPhone 2G's 2 megapixel camera shoots decent images. Decent, but not great. And it doesn't have autofocus so you can get too near to your subject. But there is a way you can shoot macro photos with a 2G camera. Here's how.

First you must open up your iPhone. I recommend following ifixit.com's disassembly guide to get to the camera.

Here's the camera after you've removed the cover. [Image courtesy ifixit.com] You'll also need to take off the rubber piece that fits on to the camera module. Then, turn the lens anticlockwise until you're satisfied with the focus. Below is an example of a photo taken after adjusting the lens.

The downside of this mod is that you won't be able to take ordinary photos. So unless you plan to go full time macro on your iPhone, adjust your lens back after you're done having fun. Just turn clockwise until you're satisfied with the focus.

Chinese New Year Trip

Just a short post here. During Chinese New Year I was back in Kuching and a few of us went up to Sematan. We stopped by the Fairy Cave which was near Bau.

It was really difficult trying to shoot in a cave with only one SB800. Many lighting setups were not possible.

The cave explorer. That's me holding one SB800.

Had a small barbecue at Sematan and stayed the night there.

Due to the lack of light pollution, this was the night sky. 30 second exposure was the most I could do before the effects of the Earth's rotation blurred the stars. Will bring a star tracker next time I go there.

Not my plane.

Jumped back to KL with the A330. Overall quite an interesting Chinese New Year.

Rear View Camera Drive Video

I recently installed a rear view camera on my car and I recorded the journey from my place to the nearby McD drive thru. This was taken at night. I expect the quality to be better in the morning with sufficient ambient light.

Wide angle lens mounted on my rear number plate.

The rear view camera is just a normal webcam fitted with a wide angle lens and wired to my on board computer (CarPC). I do the recording using the supplied webcam software.