hafizan89.com: May 2011

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Having a shocking tuning

Last week I had to go to service the Kembara in Seberang Prai. But because of some problems of not having stock of shock absorbers I had to do that part here in Ipoh. Before this for some reason humans, non-living objects and probably pebbles have start bouncing higher and higher at the rear seat and the boot area every time I go over a speed bump. So it was the rear shock absorbers not doing its job absorbing the fricking shocks properly. So it was a no brainer that it had to be replaced. That took probably 6 month for me to remember. HAHA…

Now its less bouncier at the rear every time I run over someone or some cute cuddly animal or the speed bumps. Fact, I have never run over anything that has a soul nor did I have ever killed a bear with a toothpick. Nope, don’t remember. Replacing the shock absorbers made me remember of a friend that has a love-hate relationship with his shock absorbers in his car. The person, an old single man late in his 20’s has gout, and several other old age characteristics like dementia and senility. Heck, his name is Adline Sanuza. He’s my roommate. WOOOT!!! He’s probably going to be my murderer if I suddenly die when I sleep. (He’s the 2nd from the right) hahahahahaha…

Now back to whatever the topic is. Knowing he has to travel long distances and have to use the car(a 1st gen Proton Satria 1.3) on bumpy roads he decided to put in sporty shock absorbers(or was it the springs?). In the car world, sporty means hard…HARD suspension. Hard suspension would give his car good handling and probably a sore back, neck and his old skeletal frame. Now, he loves that. But his body would probably rather he put soft suspension for comfort. The thing about his car I liked was the looks of the sport rims. They’re good looking. And I mean good looking. I really hope he doesn’t break his back in it. He also doesn’t drive above than 100kmph. WHY!!! It’s got more potential than that!!!

The thing is, I like soft suspension. Not because I’m not a hard cornering person. I can’t. You try to drive the tall Kembara like any other car and it would probably result in a humorous Kembara on its side like the picture below. Surprisingly, I could only find one picture of a Kembara on its side. And its not me so shut up.

So if I cant corner like a go-kart, why the hell would I want sporty suspension. I would rather ride in comfort with some soft suspension that doesn’t reduce the lifespan of my back and probably my skeletal frame also. Speed is a different matter. My straight line speed does not differ. I’ll still go fast but in comfort and not in some 9 Richter scale earthquake. Wonder why busses don’t have sporty suspension? They want comfort. But they still go like morons on the Malaysian highways…

Monday, May 30, 2011

Formula One and Malaysian Highways

First, I would like to congratulate Sebastian Vettel for winning the Monaco GP last Sunday. In that race probably 7 cars didn’t made it past the chequered flag. Mostly because of Lewis asshole Hamilton. Some call it racing, I call it being an asshole. Making 2-3 other cars hit the wall just because you want to get pass in a street circuit that is only wider than several meters doesn’t make you Aryton Senna. It makes you an ass. Having a faster car in a situation where you can get pass is good, but having a faster car when there is no room for overtaking is just plain stupid. Ayrton Senna used his head, not his ass to think like he did. Lewis did get a penalty for that and he deserved that.

The thing is, similar things are happening on Malaysian highways. Well, when I say similar, it’s the assholes of the roads. Not the cars. Let me clear on thing, I like driving. I like to drive at a safe fast speed. I don’t attempt going for 140kmph on a go-kart that has a roof and doors which in rain would wobble like it was the March 11th Japanese earthquake and called a Kancil. Doing that to challenge other much more expensive cars is saying that you have a small ‘life’ and you want to prove that you are much more moronic than a pitiful sight of superbike riders that are trapped under a torrential rain under an overpass in the middle of the night. Not only is it dangerous for the screaming occupants of the small car, its dangerous for every single other damn person on the road besides them. It takes one small gust of wind to make you roll like tumbleweed in a death trap. And don’t think if your travelling 1kmph faster than the person in front makes you eligible to go on the fast lane at 91kmph while others are going at 110-150kmph and block the fast lane for an entire soap opera length episode.

On my observations, we could see this happening every time a school holiday comes and every single car in the city is going to some other state to go ‘balik kampung’(back hometown). These people who drive 1-2 times of a year back on the highways always irritate the hell out of drivers that are regulars of long distance highway like the PLUS highway. We could always see the pattern. Slow cars are usually Honda City’s and Toyota Vios. These cars are usually clog the fast lanes and I think I know why. Their drivers are mostly old people and women drivers. Not to be sexist or anything but look at the roads while you drive. Once when I was driving downhill from Cameron Highlands and all and I SAY ALL THE FRIGGIN TOYOTA VIOS AND HONDA CITY were driving at 40kmph on a 60kmph road. And every time I overtake them it was nearly always an old couple or an aunty behind the wheel while her face was planted on the steering wheel itself.

Next on the asshole list of irritating highway drivers are the “I’m Lewis Hamilton, get out of my way” drivers. Yes, I admit you are driving a posh brand new 300bhp car with girls dancing in them and you are driving at 200kmph while smoking a cigar but that doesn’t give you the rights to flash your lights even when I’m travelling at high speeds to escape your cars trajectory. I know when you are coming, you don’t have to keep flashing lights and imagining that you are the thunderbirds with those. I don’t need you to tell me asshole.

There we have it, the assholes of the roads and an asshole of the F1 world… good…

To sum it all up, you can predict what the outcome of some type of cars depict their drivers are. And here are some;-

Car	Driver
Toyota Vios	SLOW old people
Honda City	SLOW women
Any old car	SLOW
Kembara	Mostly SLOW
Kancil, Viva,	Mostly slow
Expensive cars	ASSHOLE fast
Mercedes	Mostly slow, some are maniacs
Proton Waja	Mostly fast
Satria	Not so slow
Saga	Slow old people
Gen2, Persona	Average bunch
Myvi	Mostly fast young drivers
Proton Perdana	Slow bunch that think they drive fast
4X4, SUV	Fast
MPV	Slow
Premium sedans	Fast
Modified cars	Mostly slow, some are total assholes

*mind that i can possibly list all the cars on the Malaysian roads.

And lastly,

GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Semester Break

Okay…

Like always when we are studying, the most awaited thing is the holidays. No matter how moronic it sounds or horrible looking it is, that is fact. But when we are given are given a very long holiday, that mentality instantly converts into ‘I miss studying periods’ mode. That’s what usually happen…

But this semester, the gruelling 2 weeks of finals torture and 1 month of finishing up assignments and lab reports have taken its toll on my brain and my face. Imagine a cheerful 22 year old that was subjected to mental torture, physical torture, 3 all nighter’s in a week, constant bewilderment, pain, suffering, agony and shame. Now I truly know how my face would look like in about 5-7 years in the future by just looking in the mirror. Or that could only be a face of a sleep deprived 22 year old that didn’t sleep for 72 hours straight and was a constant danger to other motorist because he would listen to death metal music to just make him feel alive while driving. Now? Only the waiting of the bad results and a holiday period awaits.

Enough about my pain and suffering. Lets get technical. The following stuff are the stuff that needs or are going to be done within this hellish period of blissful thinking.

The Watercooled Peltier based Fridge

Ah yes, it was actually running for a week. Until the fateful day that my car was broken into. Not that it was in the car. It was at home. When I was running around Gombak solving the car’s problems something else also happened. But the reservoir had a leak. The leak was so severe that it meant that there was no more coolant to maintain a constant flow of coolant to the peltier unit to cool it down. Similar to a nuclear reactor, a constant cooling must be maintained so the peltier unit didn’t melt everything around it that was made from plastic. The worst happened. It melted the plastic parts. The inside part of the fridge was actually hot. So hot that it made the water inside the 1.5 litre bottles inside very warm. I don’t know if the peltier unit was damaged or not. It had a maximum temp of 68 degrees Celsius before it degrades. Its a 80W peltier unit. If it survived, it would be a miracle. What was then a sad day made me abandon the failed project.

But now I have an initiative. I would build a failsafe mechanism to keep the the peltier unit below the harmful temperatures of the watercooling failed. The Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdown gave me a brainwave. The reactor had multiple emergency cooling. Their problem was the tsunami just made all those emergency solutions to waste. How about if I made an emergency cooler that would activate after a certain temp or just be constantly switched on to help the water cooling making it a hybrid cooling. Anyway I go with this project, it could be a big disaster in the making or either just a big brain intensive thing that would make me think of world domination and nuclear fusion.

Final Year Project – Property Defence System

I have learned how to code in C, but that doesn’t mean that I could program a bloody robot to conquer the whole planet could I? So basically I need to familiarize myself with the coding parts so that it could garner up some logical thing like getting words out and getting moving some servos so it wouldn’t kill me with a laser pointed Gatling gun after I switch it on.

2 more CCTV projects

Well, here comes the shitstorm all over again. Last time I had a fever doing the setting up the whole system so that I could access the CCTV video over the internet so my family could see the premises if the alarm went off. So basically I would set up the whole grid and replicate the circumstances that I have already used for the previous CCTV project. But now I will have a total of 12 cameras to configure and reconfigure when I get it all going. All I need is some kind of magic to make this project doesn’t go haywire and wouldn’t make have more than a damn fever that could cured by a couple pills of Paracetamol. I hope that this wont make me sick. I have tons of stuff o do this horrid semester break.

For I could care is for some little hope of some solitude and it seems that I would not have the damn bloody thought of any peace and tranquillity. Tomorrow I need to make sure I don’t get in some kerfuffle in just trying get some work done.

Warning, rants of a stressed person below

Now I am just stressed out knowing that I cant spend time for myself because of family related stuff to do. At one time, I need to be at Penang, then I need to be at Ipoh then the other minute I’m to driving 200km south to KL just to get some stuff and after an hour drive back to Ipoh. To be honest, I’m a bit tired and stressed out. I just want to settle down at one location and just do my stuff. I don’t want to waste time doing nothing and just facing internet for the whole day. I don’t want to be on a wild goose chase for nothing. I want my holiday damn it. Why damn it. I’m an adult where I cant choose where I want to be when I’m on my holiday. It feels a lot like prison. I cant do my job, I cant relax, I cant be with the people I want be with and I cant do what I want to do. I’m just going to blow my head someday and I cant blame anyone else than myself for the situation that I am in right now. Well, my luck isn’t good right now. Someone would probably say ‘screw you’ and laugh at my situation. Damn you. Just damn you, damn your cat, damn your soul, damn your car brakes. I hope you go to heaven fast. I just can’t go on with all that is bugging my head right now. I need to just have a nice rest.

And I love the AMD Fusion platform.