Walter Teng （邓国伟） / Blog

A highly curious mind that is fascinated by just about everything. This blog is where I consolidate my thoughts and discoveries. | Currently a EEE student in NTU, Singapore.

[walterteng-blog]

#100codes : Express.js + MongoDB

#5: The first step towards full stack

This article refers to 2 apps in my jsground repo:

express-pug-app: simple POST, GET request

express-hbs-app: integation with MongoDB + Mongoose to perform simple CRUD functions.

Full documentation on jsframeworks/README.md

[walterteng-blog]

#100codes : Node.js Basics

#4: Simple server & router

This article refers to the nodejs-basics folder in my jsground repo:

simple-server

Simple code that does the following:

createServer() to listen on port 8000

exports, require simple modules using 2 formats

render a simple index.html page

simple-router

Simple code that routes to index.html and login.html manually using node.js only

[walterteng-blog]

UML-study - 🌿 UML study with PlantUML + UMLet

#100codes : UML Study

#3: Understanding UML diagrams using PlantUML and UMLet

Full article on github.

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#100codes : Python x Turtle

#2: The pursuit to increase my overall proficiency as a programmer: Simple codes for the day!

Codes on Github

Let's draw a cloud! Preview online

import turtle #draw cloud obj= turtle.Turtle() turtle.bgcolor('lightblue') obj.speed(100) obj.forward(150) obj.left(90) obj.forward(20) for x in range (1, 15): obj.left(10) obj.forward(10) obj.left(220) for y in range (1,18): obj.left(10) obj.forward(12) obj.left(200) for z in range (1,18): obj.left(10) obj.forward(15) obj.forward(18) obj.left(90) obj.forward(260) turtle.done() #window exit on click

Let's draw a rainbow hexagonal spiral! Preview online

import turtle #rainbow turtle #https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/cover/9781491951071/360h/ colors=['red','purple','blue','green','yellow', 'orange'] obj=turtle.Pen() obj.speed(100) turtle.bgcolor('black') def drawRainbow(): for x in range(360): obj.pencolor(colors[x%6]) obj.width(x/100) obj.forward(x) obj.right(59) #try 60! drawRainbow() turtle.done() #window exit on click

[walterteng-blog]

#100codes: CSS illustration & Animation 2

#1: The pursuit to increase my overall proficiency as a programmer CSS Animation: Paper & Book (tutorial)

See the Pen CSS animation: Paper & Book (tutorial) by Walter Teng (@davzoku) on CodePen.

CSS Animation: Floaty Pikachu

See the Pen CSS Animation: Floaty Pikachu by Walter Teng (@davzoku) on CodePen.

CSS Illustration: Civil Warrior (Tutorial)

See the Pen CSS Illustration: Civil Warrior (Tutorial) by Walter Teng (@davzoku) on CodePen.

CSS Sprite Practice Running Loader

See the Pen CSS Sprite Practice Running Loader by Walter Teng (@davzoku) on CodePen.

CSS Animation: Festive Santa!

See the Pen CSS Animation: Festive Santa! by Walter Teng (@davzoku) on CodePen.

Cheers!

[walterteng-blog]

Reads for Feb, Mar, Apr 2017

Nokia LTE Fundamentals Notes 1, 2

For Nokia LTE course.

Nokia LTE Air Interface Notes 1, 2 

For Nokia LTE course.

A Basic Course on Windsurfing from Constant Wind [Progress: Completed]

How Google Works by Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg [ Progress: 57%]

The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #2) by Rick Riordan  [Progress: Completed]

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro [Progress: 47%]

Driving:

The New Highway Code Book 1, 2

Motorcar Practical Training Handbook for Beginner Driver

Other telcom books for internship:

Practical Cellular and PCS Design by Clint Smith

UMTS Signalling: UMTS Interfaces, Protocols, Message Flows and Procedures Analyzed and Explained by Ralf Kreher, Torsten Ruedebusch

W-CDMA and cdma2000 for 3G Mobile Networks (McGraw-Hill Telecom Professional) by M.R.Karim, Mohsen Sarraf

Telecommunication Switching Systems and Networks by Thiagarajan Viswanathan, Manav Bhatnagar

Introduction to Wireless and Mobile Systems by Qing-An Zeng, Dharma Agrawal

[walterteng-blog]

#02: 2017 New Year's Resolution

#02, 04 Feb - 09 Feb: Pick a new skill; Windsurfing with NTU Windsurfing Club

#goodlifechoices

[walterteng-blog]

#01: 2017 New Year's Resolution

#01, 26 March: To be crazy enough to finish a half marathon.

I didn’t expect this to be first that is checked off from the list. It was one of those ambitious/silly goal when I came up with the list in December. Thanks Yuan Ning and Leonard for the spontaneity! 

[walterteng-blog]

Ultimate (Exchange) Student Guide + Travel Tips! [University of Surrey x Nanyang Technological University EEE]

After more than 171 days away from home, I am finally back in time for the reunion dinner in homely Singapore which is nice! :) Back to the topic, this is a short guide that I decided to put together for the benefit of the students who are going to/ interested in going for an GEM exchange programme at University of Surrey(UoS).  Writing this also serves a good time for me to reflect all the experiences and lessons learnt from my time at University of Surrey. Before I begin, I would like to mention that one of such article have been written before by getsurrey.co.uk which you can refer to as well. Academic: In case you are wondering, I am a EEE/3 student specializing in infocommunications and I did my Y3S1 at UoS. The 4 modules I took are: EEE2045 ELECTRICAL SCIENCE II Lectured by Dr David Carey and Prof Ravi Silva aka EE3001 ENGINEERING MICROMAGNETICS (4AU) - 100% Lecture and 100% 2 hour Written Paper. EEE3008 DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING A Lectured by Prof Mark Plumbley aka EE3014 DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING - 20% Weekly Flipped Classroom Assignments which are basically group presentations for your self learning of the new topic before the lectures. 80% 2 hour Written Paper - More theory explanations and derivations than calculations as compared to the usual NTU teaching style. - I realise there is a different syllabus for DSP B offered in Sem 2 while studying for my finals. I am not sure about this. EEE3033 RF AND MICROWAVE FUNDAMENTALS Lectured by Dr Peter Aaen and Dr Tim Brown aka EE4151 RF AND MICROWAVE ENGINEERING (3AU) - 20% Lab (Advanced Design System) and 80% 2 hour Written Paper - Really skeptical about taking this mod at first since I am taking Electromagnetics mod concurrently. - Lab was a little hard to grasp at first since the overall learning curve was pretty steep for me. - Glad that I have plenty of help from my EPS project mates :)

EEE3035 ENGINEERING PROFESSIONAL STUDIES Lectured by Dr David Carey and Supervised by Prof Klaus Moessner aka EE3080 DESIGN & INNOVATION PROJECT (DIP, 2AU) - Probably biggest takeaway mod; an eye opener - Project on creating a wearable tech for the medical field with a group of 6 - Lectures on various industry standards was very insightful. Topics like technological adoption life cycle, hype curves and sustainability management are a few of the many materials covered. - The UoS students have stronger hands-on skills like coming out with PCB designs and testing. Their 1 year placement/internship really gave them an edge that I am still hoping to catch up on my own. - Learnt some EAGLE basics and reinforced my knowlege of 3D design which I self learnt prior to this. - Efficient use of team management apps like Slack which was also new to me. University of Surrey EEE Faculty was highly regarded in the UK and it is a real privilege to do an exchange programme there. As mentioned, the teaching approach is very different as compared to NTU. It is very vocal with its flipped classroom teaching and there is a lot of self learning to do here. I have to refer to the textbooks a lot here. However, there is a need to memorize essential formulas for the finals which I am not used to, since the formula booklets for NTU papers are specific to the mods and comprehensive.

Play (Travel):  I went a 44 days pre-exchange trip with my friends from 8 August 2016 and we mainly covered the Scandinavian countries and Central Europe. I traveled on plenty of day trips around UK during the semester and explored the Eastern Europe during the winter vacation. I did a custom google maps to detail my travels and wrote about it a few times before. It can be overwhelming at first so it is easier to refer to the legend as a guide. Article and Legend WallEEExplore v17.01.21 Map

Helsinki, Finland (09 - 11 August 2016) Hameenlinna & Tampere (11 -12 August 2016) Turku, Finland (12-13 August 2016) Stockholm & Tyresta National Park, Sweden (14 - 17 August 2016) Norway Road Trip: Oslo Trolltunga Bergen Lysebotn Larvik, Norway (17 - 23 August 2016) Copenhagen, Denmark (24 - 27 August 2016) Aarhus, Denmark (27 -29 August 2016) Hamburg, Germany (29 Aug - 01 Sep 2016) Berlin, Germany (01 - 04 September 2016) Frankfurt, Germany (04 -07 September 2016) Luxembourg (07 - 09 September 2016) Brussels, Belgium (09 - 12 September 2016) Antwerp, Belgium (12 - 14 September 2016) Rotterdam, Netherlands (14 - 17 September 2016) The Hague, Netherlands (17 - 19 September 2016) Amsterdam, Netherlands (19 - 21 September 2016) London Day Trip (09 October 2016) Windsor Day Trip with Students’ Union (22 October 2016) Oxford Day Trip (23 October 2016) Woking Day Trip (02 November 2016) Bristol + Northern Ireland + Glastonbury & Wells (04 - 09 November 2016) Scotland(Glasgow & Edinburgh) Trip with Students’ Union (11 - 14 November 2016) Cambridge Day Trip (19 November 2016) Brighton Day Trip (26 November 2016) Paris + Disneyland (02 - 06 December 2016) Manchester + Lake District Road Trip (19 - 21 December 2016) Stonehenge + Bath Tour (23 December 2016) London (24 - 27, 30 - 31 December 2016) Prague, Czech Republic (01 - 04 January 2017) Salzburg + Hallstatt + Vienna, Austria (05 - 09 January 2017) Budapest, Hungary (10 - 12 January 2017)

It will take me a while or forever to ever write about the details of all the places I have been to, so if there is any particular places that you might want some tips or itinerary, do contact me directly. I don’t bite. :))

Here are some other custom maps I did during my researches for new places to go. These are mainly within the UK.

UK Top Places to Visit (Detailed)

Lake District Day Drive Trip

: This was meant for a day trip to the Lake District from Manchester during the winter when the daytime is short. Nonetheless, it is still recommended to spend more time there and go for a hike!

*** Tips for travelling around UK 1. Get a 16-25 Railway Card first! It cost  £30 and it’ll save you 1/3 on rail fares. You’ll cover back that  £30 in no time if you go for a lot of day trips. 2. Going for day trips with University of Surrey Students’ Union (SU) is a lot cheaper (even with a rail card). It is more worthwhile if they are able to get discounted admission tickets to castles etc. However, in my opinion, it is not recommended to go for a long trip with them though. You’re more restricted in terms of time and (super) long bus trips is tiring. :( 3. Generally, you can go for a day trip anywhere as long as the ride one way is about 3 hours or less. You’ll still have enough time to explore the city/town. Avoid going those that are far away during winter as you will have little day time. Unless you want to fork out more money to find accom. 4. Get advance tickets if you are able to plan about 2 weeks ahead. It can be very cheap. However, day trips tend to be impromptu, so super off-peak tickets bought on the day itself are your best bet. But still, try to plan ahead. 5. The best part of Guildford is that, London is just 40 - 60 mins away! A day travel zone tickets covers both your travel to and fro plus unlimited London tube travel! 6. Get an Oyster card if you travel to London a lot. Don’t forget to link it to 16-25 Rail card for 1/3 off. You have to go to any station and ask the station attendants to do that. Remember that daily fares caps are at about  £6 or  £ 6.45 and it costs nothing after that. UNLIMITED POWER~ 6. I prefer the National Rail app over Trainline cos it tends to be more detailed. But you will need trainline app if you want to buy tickets online.

Where to go in Guildford?: 1. Picinic / BBQ by the university lake 2. Short hikes / Picnics around town like The Mount, Pewley Downs, St Martha-on-the-hill, Guildford Castle 3. Tea Terrace  at the top floors of House of Fraser 4. Bike / Walk along River Wey to nearby towns like Godalming, Shalford or the Riverside Park. Refer to this route guide.

Giffgaff or Three: Personally, I used giffgaff when I know I am not travelling out of UK for the month and Three if I am going to travel. Yes, in the end, I kept 2 UK lines since my android phone support dual sim anyway. Here is why: Giffgaff: Good: More data tiering than Three. You can buy data for 1, 2, 4 GB and so on, depending on your usage. Three only has 1GB and 12GB packages. (who uses 1 GB anyway?!) Three: Good: You can use your data in many other European countries. No more trying to connect wifi on the streets to upload your latest snaps or instagram stories. UNLIMITED POWER~ x2 Santander Basic or Current: Basic. I think it will still be confusing even if I explain the differences between the two here so, you should listen closely when you are at bank then. Here is the why: 1. You will get used to transferring money between your bank card and debit card in no time. 2. No  £5/mo

BTW, remitting money from DBS to Santander is free and it offers the best exchange rate. It is almost instant during office hours (both UK and SG), but it can be a nightmare if you ran out of money and it is the weekend.

Food: There are food places like Young’s Kitchen, Hillside and some kebabs stalls nearby in school, but trust me, you will get used to cooking for every meal in the end. Deals varies from time to time in Tesco and Sainsburys’ but there are 2 things that are certain. 1.  £2.50 -  £3 B&J or Haagen Dazs is irresistible 2. Poundland for your snacks, chocolates and Haribos. 

Useful Apps (Android): 1. National Rail / Trainline: For your railway timings etc 2. Santander: Banking 3. Giffgaff / Three: Check your data usage 4. Tube Map London: London tube can be confusing and there is no reception once you are inside! 5. Moovit: Shows transport route options in many European cities when Google Maps fails 6. Flixbus: Mostly used this bus service in Europe like Germany. Track its prices religiously if you desperately need a cheap getaway from studies to Paris Disneyland 7. Skyview Free: Just cos you tend to see more stars wherever you are in Europe than Singapore 8. Maps.me: If you need an alternative to Google Maps. However, I used Google Maps extensively by starring important places. You can label them for easy identification when your maps get too crowded.

Tip: Use location history in Google Maps to review the places you go before, in case you want to research further on the place you been to when you are back.

Tell me your experiences! :  While I spent a rather fruitful time in UoS, I didn’t really join CCAs or had any sort of party life. Haha. I had plenty of the “chill in the kitchen/room” life though. Besides, my housemates kept telling Rubix, the school nightclub was always mediocre anyway. There are plenty of interesting CCAs in UoS like Equestrian Club, ABACUS, the Singaporeans Society or the SurreyEARS but I didn’t get myself to join in the end because: 1. You need Surrey Sports Park membership for sports CCA. 2. I want to travel around during my free time. Hope this guide have been useful so far and do share with me your exchange stories, I would love to listen to them! Go out there and create your own memories if you started your exchange!

PS. Pardon me for any major grammatical errors etc, I am writing this at 5am, Singapore time in the morning. Jetlag is hitting me pretty bad. Haiz.

[ Teng Kok Wai (Walter) - Nanyang Technological University x  University of Surrey, Email: [email protected] EEE AY16/17 Y3S1]

[walterteng-blog]

WallEEExplore v17.01.21 #02

Day 166:

Link: WallEEExplore v17.01.21 With just 6 days and 1 last paper left in University of Surrey, I am very reluctant to admit that my exchange is coming to a close *sigh and cries. While everyone around me are either back in Singapore or can’t wait to go back, I feel that there are still so much in the world to see, explore and experience! The life of a roamer and a nomad is so addictive to me that I wish it never stops. However time waits for no one, Y3S2 had started for most and it is in due time I go back to eat my reunion dinner, celebrate CNY and start my internship. I am sure I will still be exploring and learning back in Singapore, but in a different sense, I guess. 13 countries in 171 days later, I am happy that I have forged enough thoughts and experiences to reminisce in years to come, from all the random streets, off-road paths, hills that I walked.

Below are the various updates made from v16.11.29:

1. Paris Disneyland Trip (02-06 Dec 2016) 2. Lake District + Manchester + Stonhenge + Bath Trip (19-24 Dec 2016) 3. Prague + Salzburg + Hallstatt + Vienna + Budapest Trip (01-12 Dec 2017, Finally saw lots of snow <3) 4. A new “Vantage Points” layer that lists out all the good spots for a good overview of the city/landscape.

[Disclaimer: It will be a lot easier to read the map layer by layer in the beginning.]

There are 10 layers in the WallEEExplore map:

Legend:

Cities & Towns Visited (in Red) shows the coverage of my exchange as a whole.

(Simplified Overview) Pre-Exchange Travel Route (in Blue) shows the route I took for my pre exchange trip (44 days) that I went with my friends. (Covers over 20 cities in 8 countries, from Finland to Netherlands; One way. More on this in my future post)

A Red line indicates a flight journey; A Green line indicates a train journey; A Blue line indicates a journey by sea; A Brown line indicates a bus journey; A Purple line indicates a road trip.

UK Travel Route (in Pink) shows the routes I went. (Covers 21 cities/towns and 5 countries; mostly day trips to nearby cities after having a student hostel in Guildford. )

A Red line indicates a flight journey; A Green line indicates a train journey; A Blue line indicates a journey by sea; A Brown line indicates a bus journey; A Purple line indicates a road trip. >> A Yellow line indicates a bicycle route.

*** ADDED: Vantage Points layer! As a photog enthusiast, good vantage points are a must visit for me. These are places where I take my hour long time lapse or scenic overview of the city I am in. Currently these are few good spots that I can recall offhand. I will definitely equip layer with more details and points when I have the time.

Top 10 Museums (Nat Geo): http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/top-10/museum-galleries/ In the end, I only ticked off 3 from this list. My interest for art and art museums grew after visiting Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the first from this list. I thought I would be equally or more impressed when I work up the list. The Lourve was very impressive but I had too little time then. The third that I visited was the British Museum. I can safely conclude that I appreciate art history and paintings far more than mummies and world history. :|

Future Visit: These are some of the places that I either missed or explored too little during my time there. These are more for my future reference when I visit the city again!

Other Notes: The other layers not mentioned here are still probably in a terrible uncompleted state. :( There are still so much other things I have to work on now, but I am confident that I can complete this map in another 2 more versions or less.

Another good news is that, I have been working on a few other of such custom maps that are more location specific like UK, or maps that contain popular film locations during my research of new places to go. I will share them in due time when they are ready. :) Meanwhile, I encourage you to go out there and explore the world yourself, especially those that are currently on the exchange programme this semester! If anyone is adventurous enough to follow my foot steps in documenting your trip in a similar way, I would love to see your maps too!

[ Teng Kok Wai (Walter) - Nanyang Technological University x  University of Surrey, EEE AY16/17 Y3S1 Email: [email protected]]

[walterteng-blog]

WallEEExplore v16.11.29 #01

Day 113:

Sometimes, I ponder about how many of my friends in Singapore still remember me and wonder how I have been although I stopped updating my instagram after day 21. 92 days. Wow, that is 3 months worth of materials for me to backlog if i ever get to it again.

Regardless of when I am ever going to update my instagram, it doesn't change the fact that I am an info junkie. I need to constantly process and reinterpret whatever information I have. That was about day 30+ when I recall the good old days in ATC, creating custom Google maps that seems so complicated for me to understand anyway then.

Fast forward to day 113, I decided that I should I should release this work-in-progress map/logging thing that I am doing, and post updates on my custom map as a little motivation for me to work on it more regularly. I intend to make it as comprehensive as possible so it might be useful for anyone who would like to use any part as a guide. If you are still reading, I have attached some useful information on how to interpret the map.

Link: WallEEExplore v16.11.29

[Disclaimer: It will be a lot easier to read the map layer by layer in the beginning.]

There are 10 layers in the WallEEExplore map:

Legend: 

Cities & Towns Visited (in Red) shows the coverage of my exchange as a whole. (Simplified Overview)

Pre-Exchange Travel Route (in Blue) shows the route I took for my pre exchange trip (44 days) that I went with my friends. (Covers over 20 cities in 8 countries, from Finland to Netherlands; One way. More on this in my future post) 

A Red line indicates a flight journey; A Green line indicates a train journey; A Blue line indicates a journey by sea; A Brown line indicates a bus journey; A Purple line indicates a road trip.

UK Travel Route (in Pink) shows the routes I went. (Mostly day trips to nearby cities/town after having a permanent place to stay in Guildford. More on this in my future post.) 

A Red line indicates a flight journey;

A Green line indicates a train journey;

A Blue line indicates a journey by sea;

A Brown line indicates a bus journey;

A Purple line indicates a road trip.

>> A Yellow line indicates a bicycle route. 

Top 10 Museums (Nat Geo): http://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/top-10/museum-galleries/ My interest for art and art museums grew after visiting Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

Things to do:

- Other layers are supposed to show a detailed coverage of attractions that we went and the food we ate. However, I only had the idea to start this Google maps logging pretty late into my pre-exchange trip (about day 30+), so I have quite a bit to backlog in these layers. Bear with me for these.

Travel Tips:

- To be added.

Expenses:

- To be added.

Rants: 

While I love to show a very detailed guide of every cities/towns that I visited in a single layer for easy viewing (and just in case anyone would want to use it as a guide), I am pretty much restricted by the limitations of "My Maps" by Google. I can only work with 10 layers so I can't possibly cover a city by layer. That would mean creating 3 separate maps with 10 layers/cities which is insane. Gonna work something around it somehow.

[ Teng Kok Wai (Walter) - Nanyang Technological University x  University of Surrey, EEE AY16/17 Y3S1]

[walterteng-blog]

Free Online Resources for the Bored Soul

Finals are over, now what?

Here is a list of resources I gathered from various fields that I am interested in. You might find one or two that might intrigue your curious mind again. :)

Deep Learning

A Dummy’s guide to deep learning by Kun Chen (part one , two , three )

Professor Geoff Hinton - "Deep Learning”

Getting Up to Speed on Deep Learning

Machine Learning

Machine Learning Classes - Oxford University

12 Best Free Ebooks for Machine Learning

5 Machine Learning Open Source Projects From Top Internet Companies

How do I learn machine learning?

Data Science

50+ free online resources to learn more about data science and analysis

R, Python, Machine Learning, Dataviz: Most Popular Resources

Web Development

The Most Useful Free eBooks for Web Developers (JavaScript, ES6, NodeJS, CSS3 and HTML5). 

22 free courses I bet you don’t know about

Photography

10 Free Must-Read Street Photography eBooks

[walterteng-blog]

HEARTXBEADS: Updates this week.

Start your post finals shopping spree with us today!

http://heartxbeads.tictail.com/

http://heartxbeads.tictail.com/

http://heartxbeads.tictail.com/

[walterteng-blog]

(via Watches affordable alternatives guide - Imgur)

This is definitely an essential guide for those just starting on horology, especially cash-strapped college students. While it is all trendy and useful to get some sort of smartwatch these days, nothing beats something that just runs without regular charge. In fact, I still very much prefer the serenity of just knowing the time at the flick of the wrist. Those notifications can wait.

I knew what it is like to just start stepping into the world of horology, There are so many cool, iconic watches that you just have to get; you want to own part of that rich history behind that particular watch model or company. Unless you are super rich, you would have to settle at some point. Starting out, it might be a good idea to get one or two cheap lookalikes or homages for those secondary choices to see whether those designs suit your needs or character. A moonphase or a chronograph looks incredible but it took me a while to realise i can’t stand clutter on the watch dial. Had i gotten an expensive moonphase watch out of impulse, I would be owning a watch that I would rarely wear.

Knowing that you own a homage can sometimes be unsatisfying, knowing that you never own the actual thing. Go for it if you knew you really want that real timepiece. However, more often than not, you will be glad you made that affordable choice. Life continues whether you own a $10,000 watch or its homage. There are so many other ways to spend those extra money on.

Regardless of your choice, this photo guide by Monkeylabs is very informative for a start.

[walterteng-blog]

Photography, VR, Lossy Formats; Readings (4 - 10 April 2016)

1. Before & After: How One Popular Photographer Edits His Photos

2.  War Stories: Why I Lit Up Lytro

3a.  What Happens When You Re-Save an Image 500 Times in Different Formats

3b.  Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Photography

It is incredible how much work, thought processes and edits to create those top notch out-of-this-world photos, because they are actually out of this world. Don’t be shocked about why the photos straight out of your dslr’s viewfinder looks mundane and uninteresting. 

That’s probably why I insist on going through the Lightroom for every photos I intend to post. I believe digital photography is a 2 parts process. The photographer composes and takes the photo. He then edits the photo to his satisfaction. That’s what intrigues me about digital photography, you have a hand of editing reality from your perspective. You can say that your editing skill makes up about 50% of it.

There is definitely something learn while exploring his rigorous methods (as compared to mine) some time. He also uses Nik, which is released recently. More reasons to explore this software.

 Lytro and Virtual Reality

“A light field camera, also known as plenoptic camera, captures information about the light field emanating from a scene; that is, the intensity of light in a scene, and also the direction that the light rays are traveling in space.”

It is interesting to know how Light Field technology can improve the current Virtual Reality market. I don’t know much about these fields but let’s hope it is promising in the future.

Thoughts on the rise of VR devices actually gives me goosebumps. It reminded me of the 90s when the popularity of portable CD players and mp3 players (2000s) changes how people enjoys music. Before this, everyone was listening to their music aloud through speakers. Fast forward to the present, most of us prefer listening to music from our earphones publicly and probably can’t leave the house without one. To some extent, it reduces our human interaction when we are alone in the public. 

As the VR headsets gets more popular, we are more likely to see this in the future when we commute. I was just thinking how ridiculous this looks when I saw it on 9gag. 

I am not saying VR is bad or anything, but I am just concerned about its possible social impact when everyone just uses it everywhere. Then again, how bad can it be when we already smartphone addicts anyway?

With improvements in technology, are social interactions a lost cause?

Lossy Formats (Image Processing)

I understand lossy formats create a poorer image after every save, but It is the first time I see the significance of the compression. Good to know.

[walterteng-blog]

Blitzscaling; Readings II (23 March - 3 April 2016)

1. Blitzscaling: Class Notes and Essays

“Blitzscaling comes from the word “blitzkrieg.” Prior to blitzkrieg, all of the wars were done through supply chains. You would extend your front to only what the supply chain could handle — the max speed.The innovation in blitzkrieg was — screw the supply chain — whatever you could carry, you carried with yourself in order to go fast, without the slow supply chain behind you. Once you got to the battle, you either won big or lost big. If you lost, you collapsed because you had no supply chain (no backup, no ammo, no food). It was very much a gamble. Similarly in a startup, when you decide to scale — you are really going to crank up the burn rate — hire a lot more people, really make a go at it. If you are wrong, it’s very painful — most likely the death of the company.” 

 I haven’t read the entire collection or draw any meaningful understanding from these articles yet. However, I am fascinated by the idea of learning about what others are studying in their universities and it is not available locally. * More on this in the future. * Meanwhile here is a video interview of Reid Hoffman on Blitzscaling.

[walterteng-blog]

Data Visualization; Readings (23 March - 3 April 2016)

1. Punctuation in Novels

2.  Mathematicians mapped out every “Game of Thrones” relationship to find the main character

3.  The Star Wars social network

4.  10 Best Data Visualization Projects of 2015 Going through Harrison Kinsley (sentdex)’s Youtube tutorials on Data Visualization with Python (briefly)  late last year have started my interest on the topics of Big Data and Data Visualization. 

The ability to condense the entire fictional universe, say Star Wars, into a few simple colourful mind maps is simply fascinating to me. I definitely want to look more into the thought processes behind this project. I am still thinking of a small but interesting data set that I can acquire to work on some data visualization techniques. It also occurs to me that I would have little exposure to data visualization in my course of study in EEE. Some possible electives in this topic would be  DV3009 INFORMATION VISUALIZATION in ADM or CS2403 INFORMATION VISUALIZATION AND PRESENTATION in WKWSCI. There is little info on the net on the detailed syllabus too. In some ways, the topic of data visualization resonates with my lab session on Signals & Systems in which we have to analyse and understand image processing in both time and frequency domains. Data Visualization is an important skill set but the knowledge on the relevant data sets is important in interpreting the data as well.