Push Button...

This afternoon, I brutally murdered and disposed of the body of a push button soldered on the PCB of my DIY 8MHz computer system today.

It all started when I soldered my push button in the wrong orientation. So given no other choice I have to desolder the 4 pins of the button and pull the button out of the PCB. Unfortunately, the stubborn push button refuse to comply and insist to keep its place in the PCB as there were some solder trapped in the through holes.

After 30 minutes of 'gentle' persuasion without any progress, I decided to resort to cruelty. Firstly, I pry out the cap of the button with a plier. Then forcefully remove the springs under the cap with a pincer. After which I separated the button base from the 4 connecting pins using a cutter. And finally desolder the stubborn pins one by one from the through hole.

The whole process took me like 45 minutes, and finally I was able to solder a new push button into the correct position after removing its stubborn predecessor.

I took a sign of relief and look at the remains of the murdered push button.

Lesson learnt : Soldering is easy, but desoldering is ULTRA difficult!

Extra Ingredient...

Was eating dinner with Johnny, SK, WJ and HF in Eusoff Dining Hall this evening when SK found a cooked caterpillar in her plate amongst one of the vegetable dish! The poor girl he lost her appetite immediately after seeing the dead creature and HF immediately stop 'touching' her veggies as well.

It is about 2cm long dead, which meant that it must have been bigger before it was cooked. I hope the cooks in dining hall wash the veggies properly before cooking them, or maybe, they should start washing them from tomorrow onwards!

Dining hall now has one dish less and the portion of meat is really little. So maybe that is the reason why our IHG sportsman and women have not been winning as much medals as compared to last year...

Anyway, I am not going to reveal which veggie dish is the one that is 'contaminated'... because some things are better to be left unknown. =D

Making Mistakes...

"Know Where To Make Your Mistakes, And When To Laugh At Them."

Just feel like sharing this with everyone reading my blog.

Knowing where to make our mistakes is what I believe to be one of the most important life skill I learned so far, especially since I tend to make LOTS of mistakes.

Knowing where the costs of mistakes are lower and thus adjusting the amount of risk to take, knowing where you are allowed to make mistakes and most importantly, learning from all the painful lessons taught to us by every single mistake we make, is what I believe to be one of the most beautiful aspect of our lives. Making mistakes and learning from it makes us stronger, and help us grow as a person.

Laughing at our mistakes is not as easy as it sounds. Imagine trying to laugh in pain and sadness. Often acceptance is the hardest part. Whether we able to take a mistake in our stride and laugh at it or not has something to do with our our wisdom and maturity.

Encouragement and forgiveness will help ease the pain and make it easier for us to laugh. But at the end of the day, what I feel is that whether we see mistakes as opportunities to learn life's important lessons and laugh, or as an evidence of our utter weakness and sulk, depends very much on whether we are pessimist or optimists, which is why optimist then to fare better in the 'aftermath' of a mistake.

But it does not mean it is the 'end of the world' for pessimist. They can too master the fine art of laughing at our own mistakes, just that it takes a little more effort thats all. But then again, pessimist are generally more careful and hence make less mistakes. So I guess it sort of balances out. =)

First Post...

Yup, as you can see, my new blog is more or less up. With changes to the banner and such. Will add some stuff to the sidebar as soon as I have some free time to throw around.

Why a new blog? Well I find my old blog a little messy and for those who know me, you should know very well I LOVE changes and new stuff.

Anyway Huey Fen will be sharing this blog with me, so look out for posts from her as well. =)

Expect some criticisms and the usual stuff I normally blog about. And comments on the blog are moderated so they won't go up immediately, so please be patient.

I am also trying out the new poll system so feel free to come vote and check out the results.

Lastly, enjoy your stay at The World Of Complex Simplicity. =)