MY GOODNESS

Words that I like but people will misunderstand if I use them

Impressed, as in to be pressed into service (as opposed to being struck with reverence)

August, as in of grandeur (as opposed to the calendar month)

Incredible, as in lacking of credibility (as opposed to being of spectacularity)

My Korean coworker said I reminded her of Tablo and linked me to this

I'm not sure what to say to that.

It has an old school West-coast hip-hop feel under the modern production.

I think probably because LA always had a bigger Korean presence than NYC-Chicago.

Somehow the atmosphere is a little different though.

Social media, what is the value of awareness?

I'm fucking annoyed with "gamergate" for no other reason than because my Twitter feed is infested with gamergate related items that

a) Still fail to elucidate what the hell this is all about except something something feminism something something videogames

b) Add zero new and meaningful insight into the situation; it seriously the same rhetoric rehashed over and over agains in endless 140 character permutations

And I'm pretty sure I'm only getting one side of the story anyways.

"Story"

I tried to read an article once and it was just fucking hot garbage. All I got was incomprehensible nonsense.

And I hate this stupid goddamn -gate suffix. Watergate was the goddamn name of the hotel, it wasn't some fucking controversy about water, you philistines.

In conclusion, fuck y'all.

Can I still call it racism if it's Chinese on Chinese?

Like, people in Hong Kong really hate Mainlanders.

I would be out with one of my local friends and we would pass by a homeless person,

"that guy's from the mainland, a Hong Kong person wouldn't be out like that!"

What the fuck? Just because of that? How can you make assertions like that?

Or another one, "sorry I'm late, there were some Mainlanders walking really slowly, it's always the Mainlanders that are blocking my way"

I know a lot of times I kid that brown people are like this or asian people are like that but I've never been like oh I bet a black person committed that crime or god I hate Jews I wish they'd all just get out of this country.

Okay I've probably said something like that about Jews before. But I was totally joking.

For the record no black person has ever complained when I make jokes about watermelon and fried chicken. They'd be all like, "hells yeah, fried chicken is delicious, there's something wrong with you if you don't like fried chicken".

I think they're more offended by bigger things. Like getting shot by the police.

The Hong Kongers are out celebrating National Day!

The short of it is that since the British handover of Hong Kong, it's been a self-governed city-state and a bastion of democracy in the holdings of China. China has recently decided that candidates in Hong Kong elections must now be approved by the Central Government and people are out in the streets. Whatever, you can find the story in other places, pictures and everything, I don't need to explain it here. So I'm just going to toss out some observations since you know, I'm around, and talking with the locals and stuff.

1) China announced their intentions months ago (by my recollection and internal memory clock) but the occupation was planned for and executed on last weekend, in advance of what is now National Day by students and teachers. (You can probably guess what National Day celebrates) It's snowballed from there.

2) Some differences with other occupy movements: the scale is enormous. All the main commercial districts are occupied. It's hard for people outside to understand when names like Central or Admiralty or Mong Kok are being tossed out but it's not exactly a bunch of yahoos sitting in Queen's Park. In many areas there's actually no police presence but fortunately this seems to be the most civil demonstration I've ever heard of. (Yeah yeah, there's pictures of tear gas and rubber shot being circulated but most of those incidents actually occurred Sunday, things are more settled now; isn't funny that nobody in the west reported things when they happened, but the images are posted everywhere now that they're out of date?)

Also, the fuckin' Triads are on the steets, wut?

3) A Tienanmen situation will not happen. At the time the Chinese government had no experience in riot control and also had no riot gear. It wouldn't have happened the way it did if they had that knowledge and experience back then.

4) A lot of expats I think were indifferent (there were smaller scale protests earlier), hoping that either a) there's no disruption to their work or b) so much disruption that they can take holiday. Personally I've softened as I have local friends, acquaintances and coworkers who feel very strongly about the situation and are out there showing support. Hard to be indifferent to that, so I wish them best of luck. Democracy, as ugly as it is, is something we really take for granted in the West.

I know some Canadians that went out for a bit, and then hit up a pub after for drinks and are now at a sheesha bar. That is some seriously low intensity activism. My Hong Kong friend seemed appreciative though, so okay lol.

5) That said, I'm generally skeptical of occupy movements to effect change and especially so in this case. Hong Kong has been on the decline for a while now (in my opinion, and I could go on a lot about this) and is not an important component to Chinese prosperity. Realistically I don't think the Chinese government has much to gain by relenting or much to lose otherwise. Another thing is that Hong Kong people hate Mainlander people, in a way that makes me uncomfortable actually. That'll hurt their chances of getting any kind of populist support in China, which is what the Central Government is really worried about.

Also, this isn't a universally supported position within Hong Kong, especially among the older population. Some are even skeptical that the pro-democracy protesters aren't paid picketers. The Hong Kong nationalist streak is much stronger among the young population even though many of them were born after Chinese rule. The pro-chinese camp was actually quite strong at one point, which is why China was willing to accede to the sovereignty terms laid out by the British: the Central Government was expecting their favoured candidates to win naturally. Of course that didn't happen so..

6) As for China's democratization, remember, South Korea and Taiwan had shitty democratic-in-name-only governments until the 80s and 90s. That's really recent! Give things time, I'm optimistic.

So that's it. Cheers.

International Hijinks

So it was me, a Korean, a Japanese, an Indian and a Hong Kong native; we were in a Korean fusion restaurant.

Things got really awkward when the waitress came and the only person who can speak Cantonese was in the washroom.

Just for fun we were like, "sorry we don't speak Cantonese..Korean? Can you use Korean?"

"Sorry no Korean"

So I had to use my Mandarin..

We were still conferring in English though: "Ask them if they have soju" "What the fuck is soju in Chinese? ..uh..有韓國白酒嗎？" lit. is there any Korean liquor?

When our Hong Kong guy came back, the properly confused waitress complimented him on his Cantonese.

"Uh..thanks, I'm from here"

I'm waiting for F1 to reintroduce gas turbines

I think a gas turbine electric drive would be great for F1. I know it was tried before, but I think those cars were just ahead of their time, we have the technology now to exploit their potential.

As one might know, gas turbines are not very efficient. That's one disadvantage. And it's exacerbated when the engine is running off peak load as the massive compressor takes a lot of energy to run even on idle.

Another is the response lag when throttling a turbine engine.

There is a big advantage to gas turbines though: they have incredible power to weight ratio.

So optimally, you want to be running the turbine at its peak load all the time. An electric drive allows you to store energy when you don't need it, and delivers massive torque. It's a great combination.

Of course, F1 wouldn't be so eager to change their rules. But it's cool to think about.

Art used to be a lot easier to explain

You know, back in the day, nobody asked what was the meaning behind a piece.

Obviously, a rich guy really wanted a picture of himself to hang on his wall.

Or the Church wanted something to praise the Lord!

None of this examining the interdependancy of man and nature as it changes due to the influence of technology on our society as viewed through the lens of deconstructvist humanism..

And it's a fucking Platonic solid on a podium.

Canned Responses

"Where are you from?"
"Richmond Hill"
"Oh, Chinatown"

"Where are you from?"
"Markham"
"Oh, Chinatown"

"Where are you from?"
"Vancouver"
"Oh, Chinatown"

"Where are you from?"
"Scarborough"
"Oh, Chinatown"
"No, you've been out of touch, it's not Chinese anymore!"
"Oh..right, browntown"

Soccer fever

Strangely enough, seeing Cha Bum-Kun kick a soccer ball through a ring of fire on a farm field on running man after being 25 years retired has increased my respect for soccer players more than anything else.


He unexpectedly showed up after they called his wife on the show earlier as a joke. The challenge was actually intended for Park Ji-Sung who was standing beside him.

Is it that..

..Tiffany and Seohyun have been getting too much air time in other songs so they need to even it out with everyone? Except they still need Taeyeon and Jessica to carry?

Note to self

What did the carrot say to the wheat?
” ‘Lettuce’ rest, I’m feeling ‘beet.’ “
What did the paper say to the pen?
“I feel quite all ‘write,’ my friend.”
What did the teapot say to the chalk?
Nothing, you silly . . . teapots can’t talk!
~Shel Silverstein

Do not play jack
With the Jaguar cat--
You’ll never ever best her.
If she don’t win,
She’ll start to whine.
If she gets an eight,
She’ll pick up nine--
She’ll say she didn’t,
But you’ll know she’s lion--
She’s such an awful Cheetah.
~Shel Silverstein

I heard that Katrina
The Cook was a witch,
But me, I’m such
A stupid kid,
I yelled, “Hey! Katrina,
Make me a sandwich,”
And ZAP--
She did!
~Shel Silverstein 

How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.
How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.
How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live ‘em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give ‘em
~Shel Silverstein

Everything leaks

It's just a fact of life that if you have kilometers of piping and hundreds of gaskets, something is going to leak. We expect things to leak.

Refrigerant loops, just like your refrigerator at home, are supposed to be closed loops. It just circulates in a compression cycle forever. If you look at the refrigerant circuit at a natural gas liquefaction facility (huge pipelines, some of the largest in an LNG train), there's basically no reason to drain anything in operation. But you can expect refrigerant make-up to be supplied every week on the order of tens of tons. Obviously small in comparison to the system inventory, but quite a lot considering it's all being lost through leakage.

Steam circuits (used for heating) are also closed loops. The condensed steam that goes through any heat exchanger against hydrocarbons are sent through an elaborate system for cleaning before being boiled again. The default assumption is that there are constantly leaking exchangers, otherwise there'd be no need to spend millions of dollars on a continuous purification system when you could just install a hydrocarbon detector that trips the plant.

Cooling water circuits don't need this kind of cleaning. The water drains out pitch black after months of circulation.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if any PR promises that some petro pipeline stretching across a continent isn't going to leak, don't believe it. It will leak, the question is just how much.

Wow good thing I don't manage the Thunder

Clearly they're doing better than the course I plotted:

1) Russell Westbrook takes regular season off
2) Kevin Durant goes HAM
3) ???
4) Championship

Moer like ASS of angels

I've decided that now AoA is basically the most lascivious kpop band ever.





Also, there's a cat.

Something gonna blow up..

I found out recently that common practice with onshore facilities is that if an equipment is provided with a pressure safety valve, then a high pressure interlock¹ is not needed. This sounds like such a bad idea.

On it's face it sounds okay.

Except experienced process designers don't do this work, these kind of tasks get passed down the chain.

So I sure hope my classmates did a good job with their PSV sizing calculations back in their second year work terms...


1) A high pressure interlock would be a controller that acts automatically to isolate the vessel from the source of high pressure, e.g. closing inlet shutdown valves

Interesting how different people mark their drawings

And my own:

Kind of safety critical

I think there was a study by DNV that was like, 25% of all PSVs are improperly sized.

How could this be?

Oh wait, the PSV calculations were probably all done by interns!

Well no shit then.

International Airport Reviews

YYZ - Quite good actually, the T1 waiting areas are comparable to what you'd find in airport lounges, minus the wait staff and free buffet. Unfortunately, Canadian weather always delays everything.

HKG - Also quite good, automated immigration lines (insert your card and swipe your finger print) and basically no tariffs mean getting through customs is a snap.

NRT - Official airport of "sorry, we can't get any flights to Haneda, is Narita okay?"

CGK - Worst airport ever says everyone I've come across, how fitting for the worst city ever.