The Silhouette of Joan Zhu, Singapore, February 2009.

Joan is my very first best-friend i’ve met in Singapore, she learned writing poem in Chinese while I learned speaking in Chinese. The photo was taken under my first roll of a fresh Diana+ Edelweiss camera bought in Singapore.

Before I big up the Annual General Meeting, I wanted to feedback on the comments I’ve received about the email from Rob Robson.

54% of students were either confused, worried, or annoyed by the email sent by our Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Teaching & Learning about academic attendance whilst enrolled on a degree course. 69% of students have mandated me to talk to Rob about the inappropriateness of the email… have you had your say yet? Let me know what you think.

Anyway – it’s the Annual General Meeting today… whoop whoop!

This is your opportunity to:

• take control of your Union
• hear from the Student Officers about RUSU’s achievements and plans
• make sure your money is being spent the way you think it should be
• hold RUSU officers to account
• ensure the Union is heading in the right direction

After all – we work for you!

More importantly than that… free lunch, free Saturday Union ticket, and chance to win a pair of Summer Ball tickets if you attend! Why on earth would you not be all over that like a bear to honey? It’s a well great shout – you get fed and all you have to do is sit in 3sixty for an hour! Awesome

Anyway kids – I’ve got to dash but I hope to see you all there! If you don’t come you can’t complain

Tommy

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win.

Um, yea. That’s about it.

x

And now, OFF TO SCHOOL I GO.

About 6 more days of this! I can do it!

By Kevin Matras
November 25, 2009

Over the last few weeks, I have found myself screening for stocks with the best Relative Price Changes in an effort to determine whether a stock is good or not. Of course earnings growth and valuations are important. But if a stock is simply not responding, or worse, going down (worse than the market), something’s wrong. Or at the very least, it’s just simply not ready to move higher.

I’ve talked about this kind of stuff in the past. An investor’s best stocks are the ones that are performing the best; in other words, the ones that are moving higher. And it’s the same here. Stocks moving higher have a tendency of moving even higher. And the stocks I’ve been looking at recently are indeed the ones moving higher, especially on good volume since the overall market volume has been kind of weak. And if they are moving higher, it’s likely because there’s a good reason for them to be moving higher, or else they probably wouldn’t be.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should only look at price change. But, by including those kinds of things in your screening, some very interesting stocks will come up. Some might have just missed your normal fundamental screening. But when put on your radar screen thru other measures (its price performance for example), you might find that these are just the kinds of companies you’ve been looking for.

Once again, you’ll also notice I said relative price strength. There are periods, of course, where virtually everything is going down. So screening for absolute positive price changes will often times come up with zero results in these periods, just when you need them the most. But also, when the market is doing nothing but going up, you want to get into the pacesetters and outperformers, not the laggards that are going up only because the rising tide is raising all the ships. So using the relative price strength will always put the outperformers on your list in both good times and bad.

In this week’s screen, I’m looking for relative price change winners that also have the fundamentals to potentially make these gains last and continue into the future.

The screen starts off with:
* Relative % Price change – 12 weeks > 0
* Relative % Price change – 4 weeks > 0
* Relative % Price change – 1 week > 0
(I’m looking for stocks that are outperforming the S&P 500 over the last 12 weeks, 4 weeks and 1 week.)
* Projected Growth Rate (F1/F0) > the S&P 500’s Median Growth Rate
(Not only do I want the price to be responding better than the market, I also want the growth rate to be better than the market as well.)
* Zacks Rank = 1
(Only Zacks Strong Buys)
* Current Price >= 5
(They all have to be trading at a minimum of $5 or higher.)
* Average 20-Day Volume >= 100,000 shares
(And have enough volume to allow easy trading in and out.)

Here are 5 stocks that made it thru this week’s screen:
NNI – Nelnet, Inc.
NUS – Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc.
PRGO – Perrigo Company
TECD – Tech Data Corp.
WPZ – Williams Partners L.P.

These are all fundamentally strong stocks that are on the move and outperforming the market.
Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.

We love Korean Drama.

Ok, this mainly applies to Engineering and Science students… Probably to many graduates who are in the same field as well.

In your time in university, there will be many occasions where you require specialised software for the module you are taking. Most of these softwares recommended by the lecturers are commonly:

- Many version outdated (to the point its free)

- Student versions (SV) which is usually many versions outdated

- Old and outdated to the point that it’s incompatible with Vista and Win7

- Trial software with a license that would last about 3 months (about the length of 1 semester)

- Highly inadequate functionality as it’s free

Now why the hell would they recommend such crap software? Simple, we all like to work on our own computers  and not camp on campus fighting for computer terminals… Hence, lecturers like to help us a little by recommending some software that is free and supposedly adequate for the module. However, as you progress beyond the learning stage, you end up researching and realise that the shit that you’ve got in the computer is like 1% of what you really need… Here’s an example.

Dev C++ is a C++ programming tool. It’s free, it’s highly outdated (as it’s used to test for some higher version which i cannot remember), it works, but here’s the catch. While compiling and verifying, it tells you that there’s an ERROR, not a syntax/int/float/whatever? error, but an ERROR. That’s all it’ll tell you. You either know what’s wrong or go figure. On the brighter side, you get damn good at spotting your own errors and know exactly what needs to be done, eventually (usually by the time the module is over).

So let me get to the point of this… There are some work-arounds available to such crap software and I’d like to share them with you. At the same time, I’d like to recommend some software that is worth some “investment”.

Eclipse

OS: Mac OSX and Windows

Price: Free

Eclipse provides and extremely powerful environment for the programmer, noob or pro, to program and debug the program.

Circuit Maker SV

OS: WinXP

Price: Free

Circuit maker is an extremely old circuit simulation software that not only allows for schematic drawing, but also comes with PCB layout functionality. Circui Maker has recent been renamed into Altium which is somewhat the same, but no free version to my knowledge.

MATLAB

OS: Win XP, Vista, Mac OS X

Price: Unknown (but it’s about 200-700 depending on SV or Retail)

MATLAB 2009 comes in several version, 2009a, b and c. 2009b is what I consider the retail product offered to general users whereas 2009a is the student version. 2009r would be the enterprise version with multiple licenses. Though expensive, you would be using this software for a good portion of your study. All versions come with Simulink, a powerful simulation software that allows you model and simulate just about anything.

IMAP supported e-mail application Exchange would be good as well)

There is no right answer for this, there are some commonly available applications:

Outlook – Windows

Mail – Mac OS X

Mozilla Thunderbird – Linux, Windows, Mac (Free)

In your lifetime, you’d accumulate several e-mail addresses for some strange reason. Like me, you probably started with something like extraboy1985@hotmail.com, then as you got older, you thought to yourself “what the f*ck was I thining?!” Opened a new account like j_boy@hotmail.com, again, WTF?! Still, you stuck with it. Then realised that hotmail sucks and moved to Yahoo or whatever. You realised that you’d like to keep some of these e-mail accounts (for some strange reason). Admit it, you bitch and complain about logging on to ALL YOUR 3-4 accounts everyday and having to clear them one-by-one. Not only that, you now have school/company e-mail to handle…

E-mail applications to the rescue! Most applications come with 2 basic incoming e-mail protocols, POP3 and IMAP. POP3 is extremely simple, it just scans your mail account and downloads all the new mail (depending on how much you want to download, can be just the subject or the whole damn thing). IMAP however, synchronises with the account, and basically sets up all the folders you have in the account as well (this may get irritating, but there work-arounds). So, what ever you see in your app, is what’s in the online account. This gets really handy for handling multiple e-mail accounts and most of these applications update you with some form of alert. Hence you do not need to remind yourself to check your mail.

Of course, you can always use mail forwarding and stuff, but why bother to start up your browser and again check you mail when you have an app that’s already up and running and constantly checking your mail? There is one thing to note, hotmail does not support any of these applications, hence, I suggest you switch to something else, like Gmail which comes with IMAP.

With regards to further management of E-mail accounts, I’ll leave it to YK as he’s got something on hand.

THIS IS..

..HOME,

truly, where I know I must be

Where my dreams wait for me

Where the river always flows

This is home, surely, as my senses tell me

This is where I won’t be alone!

For this is where, I know I’m home.

]]> http://myesademba.com/2009/11/21/cerebration-2010-global-business-plan-competition/ Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:52:16 +0000 tobias http://myesademba.com/2009/11/21/cerebration-2010-global-business-plan-competition/

Message from MBASA:

Dear All,

It gives us immense pleasure to announce the launch of Cerebration 2010 and invite you to participate in the Global Business Plan Competition. Cerebration is now in its sixth year and is already one of the top-notch premier business plan competitions among leading business schools around the world.

The competition gives participants the opportunity to work on live cases based on 3 global organizations that are seeking solutions to their complex business challenges. The competition begins with registration, where participants form a team and choose their preferred Case Sponsor based on the Case Summaries on our website. At the close of the registration period, complete Case Documents of the preferred Case are mailed to all participating teams based on which they will write comprehensive business plans and compete for a chance to present their strategy to the top management of their chosen Sponsor.

So if you think you are ready for a true battle of mind, mettle, and matter, register now. This competition is open to all Graduate level students. We look forward to your participation.

With best regards,

Team Cerebration 2010

NUS Business School, Singapore

Email: cerebration@nus.edu.sg

URL: http://nus.edu.sg/cerebration

Notes on Student Protest: Lancaster, Friday 20^th 2009

We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.

-Port Huron Statement, 1962

To save myself from repetition, and to mark the event with a different blogging style,  the record of Friday’s protest is in pictorial form… I have no skill in this department, so it is a very amateur exhibition, but I hope you enjoy the photos anyway.

Yesterday was the second leg of the Lancaster student campaign for fairer fees and funding. The event took place on campus, guaranteeing, you might think, popular support and a large crowd. Unfortunately the weather being typically Lancastrian, and the neo-liberal consensus ubiquitous, attendance peaked at around 200 (about the same as in the city centre).

We assembled at one edge of Alexandra Square, sheltering under the Spine from the rain. There were a few faces there I was glad to recognise. The atmosphere was fairly jubilant, but everyone was waiting to see if the initially small crowd would swell. The gathering beginning to reach respectable numbers, LUSU blue-coats demanded everyone step out into the drizzle for a speech from HMV (Mr President). I have to admit that I stayed under the shelter with a small contingent of the less-enthusiastic. I heard enough to realise Michael was repeating much of the  speech given at the previous protest. “Is he chief of the theatre club too?” a friend asked. To give the man his due, the faithful lapped it up happily, and the occasion was marked. Onwards with the march.

The march proceeded down the spine, and out to the Lancaster House Hotel where the Vice-chancellor and his cronies were to hold a meeting. Most of them snuck in the back door of the hotel to avoid the student crowd. A few friendly members of the upper-echelon passed through our tunnel, acknowledging out cause. Michael Payne eventually went into the meeting. There was a rumour that for some time he was being kept out. But, once he was allowed nside he didn’t return. We stood there on the grass verge in the mud for perhaps two hours, or more. The chants kept going, the mood stayed cheerful. No-one can fault the spirit of those who were there. Eventually Danny Ovens (?) called everyone together for a show-of-strength march back up the Spine to Alex sq. It was a good move; numbers were depleting gradually, due to seminar commitments and bad weather. In the square there was a last huddle, and then a few vigilantes decided to storm Greg’s. All in all, a very Lancastrian demonstration.

Solidarity! ———–Wit

Very relevant article…

Countdown: 329 Days

Each program (SPEED, IACEE, ASEE, IFEES, GEDC) should be developing individual tracks/themes.  GEDC has already submitted preliminary track titles for their Conference.

Singaporean Hosts should be developing strategy for inviting local and regional engineering education stakeholders – This cannot be done without a succinct, official written piece from WEEF programs.  We need a consolidated document that explains the overarching aims and the content of WEEF. Develop a list of industry, government and academic stakeholders who may be interested.

How awesome was last night? For those of you who attended (and there were well over a hundred of you), I’m sure you’d agree that it was absolutely epic in the intensity of the debate and the quality of not just the panelists but also of the audience.

With NUS Vice President for Higher Education, Aaron Porter, presiding in the Chair over Rob Wilson MP (Con, Reading East), Anneliese Dodds (Lab, Reading East), Gareth Epps (Lib, Reading East), Rob White (Grn, Reading East) and Wes Streeting (NUS President), there were conflicting opinions on Higher Education funding across the panel. It was obvious that this wasn’t going to be without its controversy…

The debate opened with a presentation by Wes entitled “Reading – a tale of two cities”. Immediately, all around the room, faces lit up with expectation as Sabbs and NUS members recognised Graeme Wise’s style of powerpoint from a similar presentation on Bristol that we’d seen earlier in the summer (I’ve seen it three times and STILL love it). Looking at Reading, this narrative tale considers the differences between the constituencies of Reading East and Reading West in terms of participation rates in higher education, final qualification attainment of the population, and social mobility – and how all these factors tied in. It was pretty obvious that Reading’s residents would be some of the harder hit by a rise in tuition fees and the prospect of having to pay £x,000 a year extra. Priced out of the sector indeed.

Each panelist was then given five minutes to introduce themselves before we launched into questions from the audience. I’m not going to give a blow-by-blow running order of what happened but I will pick out key moments that made me laugh or made me cringe, and provide my opinion on who I thought came out well. If you know me and my political values, you may be surprised

Rob White – the Green PPC – was clearly the worst person on the panel; sorry if you’re reading this Rob, but you were. I know the Green’s are never going to get elected and nobody takes them seriously as a party… but it’s no excuse not to have done your homework. If student fees rise from £3,200 per annum to £7,000 then the average debt is not going to rise to just £25,000 from £22,000. That doesn’t even make sense Rob… try £35,000 to £40,000 as a figure for average debt if tuition fees double. And it was irritating to watch you (and others) use our Higher Education funding panel as a platform to launch a party political broadcast about Trident and foreign wars, and cut-over other members of the panel when it’s not your turn to speak. I did feel a bit sorry for him though… he looked more like a lost child than anything else. Perhaps if the Greens were to actually have power they’d realise they need to be more focused – they’re like the Liberals of the 1970s.

Anneliese Dodds came across very well, which is to be expected given her background as a lecturer at another University. Professional, collected, and cool – she knew her funding facts. She’s a lovely and wonderful person (I know, I can’t believe I’m saying this about a Labour candidate!) but I need to see her in a general debate on all issues before I make up my mind. I know Labour are on the way out and need a good kicking at the next election, but she’d make a fabulous MP. Saying that, so would the Labour candidate for Henley Richard McKenzie. Anneliese did let herself down on two occasions though… firstly when she was talking about the 2004 vote for top-up fees; this is always a dangerous topic for a Labourite to bring up as the voters then start to remember that Labour were elected in ‘97 on a pledge not to introduce top-up fees - #fail. The second time was when she was making the point that the Tories had left the economy severely weakened in 1997… I think you’ll find that the Tories left the economy in a pretty stable state that allowed Labour to spend excessively (and run up unprecedented debts) in the Blair years. Let’s not forget the Winter of Discontent in ‘78-9 under Sunny Jim Callaghan (a Labour PM). But she was absolutely sound otherwise.

Then we had Gareth Epps for the Liberals. In my opinion, he came across as the best person on the panel; informed, witty, and targeted with his criticisms of the state, the Government, and the opposition. Again though, it is easy to criticise when you’re not the one making the decisions – unless the Liberals make an alliance to form a Government with the Tories or Labour then they’re not going to be in power in the next thirty years. I say that very guardedly for the following reason. When Labour came to power in 1974, they did so on their smallest post-War vote to date. And who put them in? The Liberals and the Nationalists in Scotland. And do you remember what happened in 1976 when the Labour Government was tottering? Who came to the rescue? It was those self-same Liberals with the notorious Lib-Lab Pact who propped up the most illiberal Government of modern times. To be fair, that is history and Gareth did very well. The only point that continues to fail the Liberal Democrats on the issue of higher education funding is that their leader Nick Clegg is clearly off-message; it’s all very well and good for your manifesto committee to say something like free education, but maybe it’s time to Cut the Clegg if he’s saying something completely different? My rambling aside, Gareth was great!

Then we come to our sitting MP, Rob Wilson. I have a lot of time for Rob – he’s a thoroughly nice chap and does a helluva lot to further the student cause when he can. Being a party whip has limited his actions somewhat (being unable to sign EDMs that go against party policy, for instance), but he remains very much on our side. I thought he came across very well – he was in a hostile audience of mostly liberal students trying to defend actions of his party in the Thatcher era. He made a couple of mistakes (quite big ones) where he came across as slightly grand-standing and posturing – when he dumped student funding in the same sentence as two other issues that Tories really care about; fox-hunting and animal cruelty – and blustered on a couple of questions. Overall though, I was very impressed and thought that he could have done a lot worse given the nature of the audience. A very respectable showing for Rob, made harder by having to toe the party line whereas other panelists could be a lot freer with what they said. He wasn’t, I’m afraid, at his best though.

Wes was simply fantastic, as he always is on these things. I’m not going to comment much on what Wes said because it’s the same old NUS party-line that we all know and love… and RUSU have signed up to support the NUS on their messages so that’s by-the-by. He was eloquent, charged, and cutting – all that our National President should be An historic three-terms perhaps Wesley?

Who topped who then? Well here’s the running order from most effective to least effective as it is in my opinion: Gareth Epps, Anneliese Dodds, Rob Wilson, Rob White. There wasn’t much separating Annelise and Rob Wilson, as they were both very strong, but she just came across as slightly more intuitive on the issues given her background.

That’s all I’m going to write now, but have a great weekend! I’m going home to see the parentals and will be back on Sunday

Tommy

Yorkshire is a lifestyle choice, not just a county.

This is me Not enjoying life right now.

Though my first paper is in 3 days times, I still don’t have the motivation to study. Probably the 20 plus worth of readings with almost 20-30 pages each (okay some are 10 over pages but still they are enough to put me to sleep and I would trade kafka’s book or any world lit books for this) are not appealing enough for me to read them.

However, the consolation is that I know the skeleton of the module which involves with cultural goods and its industry and how digitalization has affected its flow of cultural prospect and of course, the adorno’s theory.

Now,  I need to cram like the examples and clear all the doubts I have throughout the whole course but I am just procrastinating. Ugh. Anyway, I uploaded some of my pictures from my blackberry and I am too bored to study so I decided to put them on here.

vincent and his pawn shop!

V was sitting besides me and we were like looking through some photos on facebook and suddenly he commented, ‘omg, she looks like she works in the pawn shop.’

I turned and stared at him. ‘What? Her? Porn shop? Seriously?’

He went (with his eyes wide opened) and went on scribbling something on his econs paper and said ‘NO! I mean like p-a-w-n shop and pawn and porn shop are TWO different things.’

And I can’t help but laughed at his incredulous face and we went on with our usual business of ‘omg-ing and eww-ing’ about the photos.  Now you see why he’s like one of my good friends I made in camp.

overflowing sink?

This is what I saw when I went into one of my school’s toilet. The water was like practically leaking from the sink top and onto the floor. I mean seriously how much water is wasted due to someone’s negligence? I know I have issue with this tap, once you press it, it will go on forever but all you need is just a little tug of the tap and it will stop.

Tsk.

milo truck!

Oh yes, the milo truck! You know the glee on everyone’s face who holds a bright green milo cup walking around campus is priceless. I mean, who doesn’t like free milo? I have to say the milo from the milo truck tasted wayyyy better than the milo sold in school. I wouldn’t mind paying for the milo from the milo truck. It is that GOOD.

Anyway, this little cup of wholesomely liquid is worth walking down to Central when you’re at AS 7. For those who doesn’t know NUS, AS 7 and the Central Library is from one end to the other and it takes like approximately 5-8 minutes for a person to walk at a normal speed to reach the location. And NUS is not people friendly with all the crazy amount of stairs and basically stairs.

union city: fashion show

We have a fashion show at Central Forum like a couple of months ago and boy, I just saw there as an audience because I had time to spare back then. And free swensen ice cream were given out that day too. NUSSU is definitely doing a good job for sponsers, I guess. Anyway, I was not very impressed by the fashion show, probably I watched too much Project Runway and my standard for such genre of competition is higher than expected? Anyway, Project Runway Finale tonight! Tonight! And oh you know why there were so many people behind, they were queuing for the ice cream, hence explained for the massive number of people around the forum.

storm's rolling in.

This picture was taken when I went fishing with my dad and mom with the intention of wanting to get a real tan. And this was what I get. When I saw the dark clouds rolling in and lightning lighting up the sky, I thought to myself ‘there goes my tan’ but to my horror, I did not know that I would be drenched even under shelter. Thanks to the howling winds and pelting rain. I ended up wet and cold rather than toasty and tan. Oh well.

with my dearest boyfriend!

This was taken with boyfriend on the way to Tampines Mall for a dinner with his family. Yes, Tampines Mall. I thought I won’t venture to the East or rather Pasir Ris because it’s really far. Like 24 stations from where I live. Anyway, I swear we look like some secondary school couple here. Like seriously.

Anyway, that’s about it and I am off to hit the lecture notes. D:

A B C D E F G

H I J K L M N O P

Q R S T U V

W X Y Z !!

Revising my ABC..

God bless I’ll get A for my English!!

Students will congregate outside Parliament Square on 1 December

London-based students will be storming Parliament Square on 1 and 2 December in order to campaign against the cap on university tuition fees.

The Town Takeover, an event organised by the NUS, is part of the “Funding Our Future” campaign which aims to raise awareness about the unfairness of Government plans to raise fees.

Students will gather around Parliament Square on 2 December for a demonstration followed by an opportunity to meet and talk with local MPs regarding the issue.

Town Takeovers have already taken place in several other cities, most recently in Southampton yesterday.

The campaign, no doubt, will be a feisty one and with e-mails, tweets and Facebook groups all over the shop, the turnout for the demonstration is expected to be huge.

City University’s Student Union will be in attendance, alongside other London universities. Unions are urging their students to get involved, either by turning up to the event or spreading the word via their local MPs and radio stations.

This is my first Module Preference Exercise (MPE)! I missed the previous one and I’m totally clueless about it.

Wonder why it must start in the reading week? I don’t even know what modules I want to read the next semester. I don’t even know why I choose CS over other majors? Well, maybe it sounds nice Computer Science but who knows maybe it’s Commit Suicide!

LOL. I’m crazy!

I don’t understand science, don’t like calculations like mathematics and physics. That’s why few yearts back I chose polytechnic where I don’t have to touch all these stuffs. Who knows at university I’m going back to square one?

All my seniors and friends, not even one stream into CS. LOL! I have no one to turn to for advice. Now I don’t even know what modules should I take next semester. Guess what? The deadline for MPE is just two days away.

That’s great! I’m lost.

I was walking out of school when I notice that the new business building is really taking shape and looking nice. I noticed the beautiful skies that afternoon and how the building was designed to reflect the skyscape. It’s interesting how even architects have to borrow the glory of Almighty’s creation to cloth their designs with splendour.

Reading’s Town Takeover is well under way… albeit with a couple of last-minute modifications.

Wet weather and high winds nearly cancelled play on the Quad outside HumSS (we didn’t want to be chasing bin-bags across the grass and into the Library all afternoon), but in a stroke of brilliance we relocated into the Union building and have been throwing bags of debt around 3sixty all day to create our Mountain of Debt. Reading Chronicle are coming down in an hour or so to provide some coverage for the papers… so if you’ve not yet contributed your debt, then make sure you get onto campus and into the club now Let’s face it, you’ll be there tonight anyway for the usual 3sixty Extra Time night so why not stop by twice in one day…?

We’ll be taking our messages of debt directly to our Vice Chancellor Gordon Marshall – so know that it’s not all in vain. At the same time we’ve got petitions going to sign (in 3sixty!) and letters you can send to your MPs to protest Government plans to make you pay more for your degrees… so much we can do now to say loudly and clearly that we’re not going to put up with it any longer!

Keep an eye on here for more information later about what’s happening tomorrow!

Tommy

Mountains are made to be conquered.