Archive for August, 2008

1 month down, 4 to go

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

It’s been nearly a month since I arrived here in Singapore and to be honest, it’s been going fast. Maybe due to the hectic pace of life or maybe because I’m still struggling with finding a proper rhythm. I have been doing tons of stuff, but I think I am forgetting as many things I should do as things I am doing. It was only today I found out I hadn’t actually informed the people that have to agree on my curriculum about the courses I applied and got accepted to. But I’ve now got 4 nice courses I’m going to do.

CS4243 – Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
A course in which you learn a lot about using Matlab to analyze images. There’s a project that’s part of the course in which you are supposed to create a system which does something … visual. Examples of last year are a chess computer that uses camera’s to read the chessboard and a camera that can track moving faces in its image. I’m quite excited about it, mainly because I don’t know too much about programming. I know a lot about perception and related subjects like optical flow. And some stuff about signal analysis and using Fourier transforms to analyze these. Ah well, we’ll see how it turns out…

CS5340 – Uncertainty Modelling in AI
Presumably the hardest course I’m taking. It mainly aims at using Bayesian networks in order to model uncertainty. Bayesian networks are mathematical models that can be used to model a number of things. For the people that have been watching House (just watched s2e24, and it’s awesome!), a differential diagnosis is basically a Bayesian network. You use a number of evidences to try and find out what the most likely cause is.
An example from cognition is the word recognition model by McClelland and Rummelhart (1981) in which different aspects of words, letters and elements of letters are used to find the most likely word that is depicted by a number of letters. However, this last example might be a neural network… I’m not entirely sure yet. But I’m sure I’ll know the difference in a matter of weeks!

PL5221 – Analyzing Psychological Data using General Linear Models
Even though I already have a pretty decent background in statistics, I think it’s worth just to know a little bit more. I’ve seen a couple of things on GLM’s, but every time I need to run one on data, I encounter words I don’t know the meaning of in SPSS. So this course is supposedly going to help me in becoming a better data analyst, which will allow me to perform even more complicated experiments. It’s not like chi square will bring you anywhere right?

EE4305 – Introduction to Fuzzy/Neural Networks
The original idea was using this course to make the computer vision course easier. But they’re at the same time, so maybe it will be helpful when I get a bit further into the course. The best thing about this course till this far is the teacher. A really helpful guy, who speaks English really good… grammar wise. His pronunciation makes ‘variable’ sound like ‘rawrble’. But I don’t foresee many problems during this course.

Traveling

[singlepic id=43 w=320 h=240 float=left]Tutorials and projects are only starting next week, so the time I spend studying is limited to the lectures I attend and the preparation I do for these lectures. I’ve had only one assignment so far, which worked out pretty ok. So what do you do when you’re in the hub of South-East Asia? You travel!

Last weekend I’ve been to Pulau Bintan in Indonesia with a couple of people I met here in Singapore. A nice mixed bunch of people. Americans, Canadians, French, Germans, Scandi’s and Dutchies all getting along just fine. We rented two huts in a place called “Shady Shacks” for really no money at all. The tickets we booked were pretty cheap too. And the entire weekend was really good.

We left on Saturday too early to be healthy and at arrival on Bintan, after about 2 hours on a ferry, we stepped ashore into the pouring rain. A bit weird, a bunch of westerners walking around in the rain looking for a place to eat. It was national day in Bintan, celebrating the liberation from the Dutch reign (at the point I found out I took of the Dutch flag draped around my shoulders), so it was really crowded on the streets. Weirdest thing would have been being flipped off by a 13 year old boy… I just assume that’s the normal way of greeting people on Bintan.

[singlepic id=41 w=320 h=240 float=left]We had an awesome dinner in the harbourtown/capital Tanjung Pinang, after which we got on 2 cabs to go to the Shady Shacks, but not before going to the supermarket for some alcohol preparation. A crate of Bintang and one of Carlsberg were supposed to keep us alive and amused throughout the rainy day. And it really didn’t stop raining, even when we got to our accomodation. But since it was still warm, we decided to bring some beers into the sea and just go around for a swim in the rain anyways. Which proved to be an awesome preparation for the dinner and after-dinner.

I have to admit I don’t remember too much of that evening, but one absolutely weird incident I have to share. While I was sitting and enjoying a beer, Chris, a friend of mine came to me with a quite surprised look on his face and asked me to come with him. Apparently this local guy called Smiley was able to read hands and found out something quite personal about Chris. So ye, scientifically educated as I am, I let him read my hand and I’m still amazed by what he concluded. “When you were young your parents made you learn how to fight”, which is absolutely true… I even remember the day my mother called a Pencak Silat school in Zwolle to have me train there, where I stuck for 8 years. Black magic apparently still exists in Indonesia. Someone care to provide me a plausible reason for this guy knowing this?

At least the next day the weather was better, which leaded to us spending the day at the beach, getting sunburns and having dinner and really not doing anything worth mentioning. Or taking any pictures worth mentioning. In retrospect, that dinner gave Sam and me a foodpoisoning, but damn those shrimps were good.

Coming weeks

I’ve decided to do less partying during the week and pay more attention to school. So this is where my rhythm is supposed to be kicking in. From now on it will be all studying and spending my time wisely. There’s still a trip to Pulau Tioman in Malaysia being planned in a few weeks. Next Saturday I’m probably going to the DMC championships.

And in the recess week, starting 22nd of September, I’ll maybe go to Thailand or Bali/Lombok… only time will tell. And for the rest, I got word from Eindhoven our weekly Intermania meetings started again. Which means that I’ll be writing a small article on how Singaporeans do not understand a damn thing of environmental psychology!

en ettor, alvast een haeahahehehaeaha op de spitsvondige comment die je gaat plaatsen!

Posted in School, Singapore Exchange | 9 Comments »

The Singaporean Life

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

I’ve been in Singapore for two weeks now and I’ve got the idea that I’m starting to find out how I’m supposed to live here in Singapore. I’ve had one week of lectures and something like a routine starts to emerge in my usually quite erratic lifestyle.

School

As far as school goes, I applied for 6 courses from which I followed all first lectures. Going to NUS is always a bit of a weird process. You’re supposed to get accepted for at least one course you apply for, but when you get here, you’re supposed to pick your study package. You’ve got two weeks after class starts to do so. So with this whole process of dropping and adding, NUS has something called ’shopping week’, in which all lectures are really crowded with people who are considering taking that course. And the second week they drop the courses that are too hard, too boring, too easy, too whatever.
[singlepic id=157 w=320 h=240 float=left]So I’ve been shopping too and took the following courses: ‘Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition’, ‘Introduction to Fuzzy/Neural Networks’, ‘Modeling Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘Analyzing Psychological Data using General Linear Models’. 2 Computer science courses, 1 electrical engineering course and 1 psychology course. Very much like back at the TU/e, where I have courses at all three of those faculties too. I’m pretty confident about passing these 4 courses, but the Uncertainty one and the Computer Vision one are going to be really hard work. Something that is somewhat unusual for me, but something I started right away from the first day of lectures.
My schedule is pretty light, but I’ve got courses at the weirdest hours. Monday en Tuesday I have courses from 1830 till 2030… Wednesday I don’t have any courses. Thursday I’ve got one course from noon till 1400 and on Friday I’ve got one course from 1000 till 1100 and then one from 1600 till 1900. It’s pretty weird… but on the other hand, coursework in here is only something like 25% of what you’re supposed to do.
Not al courses start with the serious business right away, since this is supposed to be shopping week, right? Except for my Uncertainty course… I’ve been reading two articles and a couple of chapters on Bayes’ theorem and applications of it. Pretty interesting, although it’s still quite abstract. This course is going to be hard, so I’m really putting my hours into it. Let’s see if it pays off.

Rhythm

A life pattern is somewhat emerging from my seemingly random activities and urges and needs. Apart from the courses that I go to, for which I have to travel around 1 hour, I find the time to do other important stuff like eating, sleeping, drinking, shopping, sightseeing, etcetera. From these activities, eating is definetely the most fun. My breakfast consists like in Holland of cereals and milk, but the fun really starts at lunch. All the food here is great, Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, Malayan. Plus it’s really cheap at the hawker centers here.
So around noon or 1 I grab my first meal, and then at 7pm I grab my dinner. I’m starting to appreciate spicy food.
And throughout the week I have a couple of things to do. Wednesday night is partynight, which is fun in Singapore too. Beers are expensive, but you get wasted pretty easily with this hot weather, so I spend about as much as I would in Holland.

Social stuff

[singlepic id=158 w=320 h=240 float=right]
Getting wasted by yourself is pretty… sad. Luckily there really are a lot of people in the same situation I am, so from the first week it was easy to find people to get wasted with. Right now there is the healthy tension between two groups of people who I can hang out with. On the one hand the Dutch guys from my uni hooked up with a couple of Norwegians, which is pretty fun. And on the other hand there’s a couple of people from everywhere, who I know through one of my classmates for my Computer Vision course.
And next weekend already I will have to decide with who I’m going on a trip. Either to the Perhentian Islands with the foreigners, or to Pulau Tioman with the Dutchies… It both sounds good to me :( .


Traveling

[singlepic id=81 w=320 h=240 float=left]And ye. Singapore is also known as the hub of South East Asia, so I have the idea I should take advantage of it. From 6th till 8th of August I went on a trip to Kuala Lumpur with my fellow students, which was pretty nice. (check out my gallery) A bit too crowded to walk around easily and a bit too early after arriving in Singapore to really be used to anything, maybe it wasn’t really worth it. But it was still good fun! And now next weekend I’m going to somewhere in Malaysia. For the recess week I’m maybe going to Bangkok and in December after my last exam, I’ll be traveling around with my girlfriend. Indonesia? Thailand? Vietnam? Hong Kong? Australia? Anyone can recommend anything?

General Findings

- Singaporean people walk really slow and don’t pay attention to anyone walking behind them. So they can just stop anywhere on the road causing you to bump into them.
- Singaporeans, like their speed of walking, do not run very fast. It’s more like they want to show that they’re spending effort in trying to move faster than actually move faster, causing them to swing and flail wildly with their arms and legs, but not moving very much faster than normal.
- Singaporeans don’t have long hair and goatees. I do. Most people don’t mind, except for people from India. For some apparent reason they really stare me down. Really… really down. And they don’t stop when I start staring back… It kinda creeps me out.

POLITIXZ

Porn is banned, the National Day Parade seemed more like war propaganda to me and there’s 4 official languages. The discussion going on in Holland whether or not the government is patronizing too much sounds almost ridiculous when you see what the government tells people here. For all men there’s a yearly fitness test on which you have to perform sufficiently to be able to serve your country in times of need. If you don’t perform well enough, you have to do training for a while as punishment.

Tags:
Posted in Everyday | 23 Comments »

Kuala Lumpurian cabdrivers

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

I’ve been in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for two days now (pictures will be uploaded this weekend) and am still amazed by how cheap everything is. For everything you pay the same price in Malayan Ringgit as you would in Singapore Dollars, but Malayan currency is worth around half of Singapore currency. So this is truly a place for cheap food and shopping and cabs.
But after todays cabride, forced by the tropical rain that started all of a sudden, the cheapness sort of leaves a sour taste. Cabdrivers in Kuala Lumpur don’t use their meters, only maybe for locals. So obviously, as the cheap Dutch bastard that I am, I feel a bit ripped off and try to haggle money of the first price they offer. Which means that for a cabride of around 30 minutes we pay 20 ringgit, which translates to 4 euros, which translates into a euro per person. It is indeed cheaper than a metroride in Paris or even a busride in Zwolle or Eindhoven.
But today we had a cabride with an 62 years old man, who was very open and honest. He explained us the situation for Kuala Lumpurese cabdrivers, which made me rethink my opinions. He started of the talk with the usual “where are you from?”, but the conversation turned pretty serious pretty quickly after that. He first admitted that he had some really bad experiences with Dutch tourists, trying to haggle really really hard to get the lowest possible price. I do kind of agree with trying to haggle, since Dutch people are considered to be cheap, right? But then he explained why he felt this was a bad thing.
The meter in these cabs charges around 10 cents for 100 meters. A small example: the trip we took from the Petronas Towers to our hostel was 6.90 on the meters, but we had a fixed price of 20.00. So you’d feel ripped off right? But what’s your opinion if you hear that this 62 year old man works 17 hours a day, 7 days a week and hardly makes any money. He has to raise 200 ringgit a day just to break even on the costs of cab rental, gas and cab maintenance. So if this guy would run on the meter, he would make around 7 ringgit per half hour aka, undoable.
After hearing a story like that and realizing you’re doing your best to push the price down as much as possible, you don’t really have any choice but to feel at least a bit bad about yourself.
So that’s what I’m doing right now. Feeling bad, writing a blogpost and promising myself not to haggle that much for the prices of cabs anymore.

Tags: ,
Posted in Travels | 13 Comments »

I just bought a keyboard

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

(nederlandse versie onder)

So I can finally write a blogpost. Typing larger amounts on an eee keyboard just isn’t really worth it. So now I just returned from Sim Lim Square (aka electronics madness) and am in my room typing all of this.
It’s weird to realize I was wii-ing at my parents’ place with my family just three days ago and now am wii-ing something like 12000 km (someone correct me please, I need to know how far I am) away from that place.

Travelling

This whole foreign experience started with nothing short of a journey of great epicness. I flew from Dusseldorf to Zurich (where apparently ‘change happenz‘, which was easy. Then from Zurich to Bangkok for a technical stop, which was easy too. No inflight entertainment equals awesome nightrest if you’re as ill disciplined and easily bored as me. But at Bangkok some huge Chinese sat down next to me. Snoring, smacking, depositing phleghm in his barfbag… I felt maybe Singapore wasn’t the place to go to. He was very friendly though, grabbing my plate and handing it to the stewardesses. Just that spitting… man…
After the airplane comes the MRT. I gave Aaron (the guy in whose apartment I’m renting a room) a call and stepped on the train for a one hour sit. When I got out at my stop, Aaron was there to pick me up and help me end my tour du monde.

Housing

[singlepic id=165 w=320 h=240 float=left]Thanks to my girlfriend Hoi-Ying, I got into contact with Aaron after being rejected for all campus residences I applied for (which has nothing to do with my person, they are completely overbooked and I applied quite late). Aaron is a teaching assistent at National University of Singapore (NUS) at the department of Communications and New Media and probably the most hospitable guy I’ve ever met. He offered me to rent a room at his place right away and even offered me to come pick me up at Changi. I don’t think most people would do so after receiving only one e-mail from someone who is the boyfriend of a friend of a friend of theirs.
The house is great. 15th floor of a huge block in the far West of Singapore. 5 bus stops from the train station and eating places in walking distance. The only drawback (which I will probably get used to) is the fact that it’s surrounded by huge apartment blocks everywhere. Luckily, the view isn’t impeded by these blocks at all.

NUS

Aaron’s incredible hospitality is followed by his likewise incredible helpfulness. The first full day I was here, he took me around town helping me out with getting a local phone number (+65 84208766 if you wan’t to call) and a local back account and registering for NUS.
All the ease of opening a bank account were a pretty bad preparation for the registration. I wrote about the immigrations office ICA before and this registration thing was the same hell all over. Go from one queue to a counter, where they take a number of papers from your immense pile and give you a number of papers to put in your immense pile and send you to another counter, where the same thing happens again… ad infinitum. But (infinitely) long story short, I’m registered now and from 11th of August, I’ll start attending lectures in order to learn something on simple forms of AI, which hopefully will be helpful once I start graduating.

NUS and related stuff

[singlepic id=159 w=320 h=240 float=right]Yesterday, the last student from TU/e who’s studying at NUS too arrived. And the same evening there was a small meeting up drink thing in a park for all NUS exchange students. Only a (ridiculously high) number showed up and by filling up something like 4 busses, we went to a park quite close to NUS. There people drank the drinks they bought, sat on the benches they found and had forced talks with the people they met. I’m not trying to be antisocial, but these meetings are horrible. “What’s your name? Where are you from? What are you studying?” … NEXT!
At least I met the fellow TU/e guys (see their and others latest posts on the colleagues page) and we decided to go to the beach today. Considering I’m writing this blogpost now, I’m not at the beach… so our appointments aren’t rock solid yet. But they probably will be in due time.

Ah well. That about sums up some of the things I’ve been doing. I don’t know if I’ll be updating this weblog that often, since I can’t tell how much time I will have to kill later on in my stay (no, blogging is not one of my top priorities Although I already have a draft called ‘Singapore, from an environmental psychology point of view’.). But do check out my photoblog which is more regularly updated.

()
Ik ben aangekomen en alles rustig… en omdat ik denk dat het grootste deel van de bezoekers Engelstalig is, doe ik het ook gewoon in het Engels. Maar dat betekent niet dat ik niet aan jullie denk ;) .

Posted in Everyday, Singapore Exchange | 2 Comments »