And so as told by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Soon after the news broke, we were informed that the next-generation iPhone would be announced on June 22nd (a Tuesday, naturally) and would be dubbed the iPhone HD (a name that has been tossed around before). That certainly makes sense given that Apple almost certainly has to up the pixel count in order to rival the EVO 4G, HD2 and all of those other high-res handsets, but we’re still reserving judgment until we see that fateful media invite hit our inbox.

There had been speculation of the phone spotting a 5 Megapixel camera as well, (a much needed improvement considering how bad the current 3.2MP camera is) given a large mysterious order for 5MP CMOS to a Chinese firm last year. The form factor will still remain largely the same, candy bar with a non-removable battery body. The only difference is just a bigger camera hole at the rear and a discreet video conferencing camera at the front near the earpiece, so as the pictured by the release of the 4th Gen internal housing shells by Chinese OEM mobile parts maker as few months back, where production could have already started.

WSJ’s John Gruber also weighed in with some more tidbits, in his characteristically polite way. Gruber says the next model will have an A4-class SoC, a 960 x 640 display, a front-facing camera, and that iPhone OS 4.0 will enable third-party multitasking. A pretty safe set of predictions, in all, but Gruber’s done pretty well in the past, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

And so I was at La Tasca Cambridge, for my 26th Birthday celebrations. It’s a treat and get together for everyone for a table of 9 collegemates. The Spanish food was good and so was the service, we also had a dedicated waiter throughout the serving. Had had the “Tapas to share”, which was an assortment of various Spanish al-la carte dishes including Paella (had been sometime since I’ve had Paella). I had a voucher for the Tapas at an astonishing 50% off for orders. Of course that excluding the Sangria which is essentially wine, grape juice with an assortment of fruit bits.

Shaun’s Birthday 2010

Got Cake?

Cut the Cake?

Apparently all vegetables are served as salads in Spanish cuisine, veyr much a welcome to compliment the ribs and various meat assortments as well. Oh yes, there was cake and a very large knife for the cake cutting too! Glad everyone had a fantastic evening!

After spending the last 2 days sloughing through hundreds of photographs (even to the extent of Photoshop glitching when putting together several 12 Megapixel images to form an image over 32000 pixels in width), it is finally done! The photo stitch gallery had received a significant update with all the panoramas I’ve captured over the last few months, namely an injection of over 20 aerial shots I’ve captured in the UK itself, finally they are all uploaded on the site.

There are quite an assortment of nature scenic shots as well as the horde shot of the 2010 Countdown at London. Here is one in Cardiff I have of Cathay’s park, Wales:

The galleries had outgrown the single page, so I’ve sub caterogesd them into 3 main pages now focusing on a region each. You can navigate through them via the sub dropdown menus on the pages too. Check out the galleries here on the site:
UK Gallery | Singapore Gallery | Malaysia & Indonesia Gallery

Today is my birthday! Yay! *runs around rejoicing* It’s neat having it on the term break holidays so as you can really enjoy every single bit of this day which you can truly call your own day off!

And so this is my first time celebrating my birthday overseas in a new environment, but the party seems to be on a different continent! I won’t be expecting anything fancy this year here (so as not to keep my hopes too high yet). But hey I was lucky to receive stuff from home, particularly this neat birthday card my family had sent me.

Confusingly, I’ve started receiving birthday greetings and well-wishes from yesterday afternoon onwards, wondering whether people are getting ahead of themselves, only to realize that it’s already the 25th of march in Singapore (where it’s 8 hours later here). Ahha and so it was! Commendably too, I am surprised that some greetings came from Singapore spot on at 12 midnight London time (8am SGT) as well, that’s impressive! Sooo, guess that’s what you get for long distance birthday greetings, nonetheless still very cool. I am glad everyone remembered, does make you all warm and fuzzy thinking about it.

Definitely goes in hand as quoted in my card with niffy hand drawings by Sheena: “Although we may be miles apart, no distance is too far”.

How true.

Just some fun for thought, I’ve compiled a short list of some famous people celebrating their birthday today too. Well, of course maybe excluding the few other thousands around the world celebrating too, but hey of course am not the only one!

I once heard this anonymous saying: Cool people have their birthdays in march. As how flattering it can be, I guess there might be some truth in that remark based on general opinion- we march babies can be quite a fun bunch indeed!

Just as how I like to I always like to use the quote: A year older, a year wiser! I do hope the same can be said for me- I just tend to find myself rather too bogged up to actually get anything properly done these days, let be even working on my short term memory (I think the lack of coffee have to do with this). Having said that, to wrap it up here on this post, as tradition on my birthday, I will be dumping all my work for the day (something which I never see myself doing since school started) and taking a chill out for some quality work-free time.

Man this feels good, bring it on day!

Ah yes, so much for mentioning the British Museum & 39 Steps in the post title, actually the whole reason for me to be in London last Saturday was an invitation to a lunch seminar at Royal Garden Hotel organized by PS(D) for SAFOS, SMS, DMS and DSTA Scholars studying in UK. It was a rather small lunch event, held in one of the seminar rooms with an attendance of about 50 people tops filling up about 5 tables. The best part is that we had some form of “local cuisine” at the event, namely Laska, Char Kuay Teow, Siew Mai, Chicken Rice, not to mention a weird reproduction of Ice Kacang.

Nonetheless, got to meet catch up with familiar faces, not to mention meeting up with quite a number of new ones as well. There, I had an opportunity to voice some concerns over the lack of availability of first year internships for scholars, glad I got that cleared to big boss who was at the event to take note of any problems and suggestions.

The day just literally started after fueling up with the lunch buffet. With spring around the corner, it’s not usual to see anyone dressed with a shirt and suit walking round London- and that was literally my attire for the day! And I say, this suit was made for this weather- no way am I able to pull this in Singapore without even soaking through all my clothes in sweat.

The British Museum

The Great Court of the British Museum

Case Exhibits

My first stop was the British Museum, to meet up with some friends to do some planned figure and still life drawing on the statues. The museum is a short walk from Russel Square station and park. Going around London is quite a no brainer for me, even when visiting new places. In the worst case scenario, I will always have my phone’s GPS and tube map to guide me through. That Saturday was my 2nd consecutive weekend in London, I say, I am starting to get the hang of traveling through and fro between London and Cambridge through rail. A rail journey will set me back only 40mins on a high speed rail and it’s made more worth while with my railcard to boot the prices down. Definitely gone was my impression of long boring journeys so as I came to know of about from my first bus trip from London Heathrow airport to Cambridge.

The Greek section

The Egyptian Section

Walls of stone!

And so yes, the museum, you will be greeted by this huge glass sky roof upon entering the front doors. Known as the great court, this was a magnificent upgrade to the museum which was once to be an open air court yard surrounding the reading room. With only time to tour the first floor, the museum has quite an extensive of prominent Egyptian and Greek sculptures together with a collection of Chinese, Greece, Roman and Ancient Cyprus objects. The things which really stand out will be the Egyptian stone statues which is part of a theme the museum was showcasing at that particular time. These statues proved to be a rather popular piece with many artists seen littered all around the museum sketching the various poses and practicing anatomy drawing on their sketch books and canvases. Met up with my group and started drawing for about an hour until the museum closing time at 5.30pm. Time to meet my college mates for dinner!

We met up with my college mates together with some new friends studying in LSE at the station, they recommended this Korean joint near Totterham station called wu jung. The restaurant is like a typical 2 floored shop house which is no different to that of the 5-foot walkway stalls in Singapore. They serves some rather niffy Korean BBQ chicken and pepper mix which goes awfully nice with rice and the omelette sides we ordered. Having brought tickets the day earlier, we hit the tubes again after dinner towards criterion theater at Piccadilly circus to catch the musical for the night: 39 steps

Catching the 39 Steps muscial!

Piccadilly Circus at night

The criterion theater

39 steps the musical is based off an adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, first published in 1915 by William Blackwood and Sons. This theatrical adaptation by Patrick Barlow opened in London’s Tricycle Theater, and after a successful run, transferred to the present location here in Piccadilly. This comical version is exceptional and is really full of laughs, the thing which makes this carnation of the story unique is that it is only performed by a cast of only 4 actors and actresses, often with all of them, except for the protagonist playing multiple roles through the musical, which was really laughable in a way given the way they switch through the roles right on stage. No wonder the Broadway production received six Tony Award nominations, winning two—Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design with the London show winning an Olivier in 2007 and two Tony Awards in 2008. The play also won the Drama Desk Award, Unique Theatrical Experience. Recommended indeed.

My only gripe was that the tickets actually costed cheaper by buying them at the theater (£22.50- lucky for those in the group who wanted to join us at the last minute) compared to £29.50 per head when I initially brought them in bulk online. Despite being told that these £22.50 tickets are lower class tickets (usual £45 walk in rate), but they are indifferent and right on our seating row as well, go figure!

The play was 2 hours long ending 10pm. Would be planning to catch Avenue Q next. Then it’s a short train journey back thereafter to the Cambridge station and a cycle back to college by midnight to end a day well spent.

It’s the start of the easter term break and no what other better way to start it but getting all engrossed in building an electric racing car to compete in Greenpower. Greenpower is an annual racing event organised by the Institution of mechanical engineers (iMechE). It electric car racing for schools, colleges, apprentices and youth groups. colleges, apprentices and youth groups. The event goes in the aims of IMechE Greenpower- To promote engineering and technology as exciting careers.

There are few categories for racing, namely the formula 24 and corporate challenges, where manufacturer teams such as Ford & Jaguar LandRover get to compete as well. Schools can either design and build their own cars or use customised kits to compete in regional endurance heats using standard motors and batteries. The final race at Goodwood lasts 4 hours and is an exciting event with 75 finalists competing.

Our team managed to get a workshop out of Cambridge to work in, the car was literally built from scratch, starting today with nothing but some newly procured 1.25mm mild steel tubes, a band saw and a mig welder. That pretty got all 3 of us busy with lots of cutting, grinding and welding- literally getting our hands dirty.

Zing!

Welds on spot!

Vroom vroom!

With packed lunch and lots of coffee (we had to wake up early to travel over 2 hours to get to our workshop) to keep us going, surprisingly we all managed to get our chassis space frame up in one day! There will still be much done tomorrow, namely getting all the other fine bits done up, welded installing the drive train and steering for the car.

Next week will come to real messy (& choking part) of dealing with fiberglass and carbon-fiber for the car body shell, part of the aerodynamic works planned for the 2nd phase of the race car build.

Hope all goes well!

It was devastating, nine days after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake killed hundreds of people in south-central Chile, relief efforts were beginning to reach those in need, rescue missions became recovery missions, and rebuilding is already under way. In the days since the February 27th quake, nearly 150 aftershocks have been recorded, including thirteen above magnitude 6.0.

Despite the rush of humanitarian aid to all affected areas, the government has been criticized by Chileans, who say the response was slow and inefficient. One recent government action was to grant a short amnesty to looters before sending troops out in search of stolen goods. Nearly $2 million worth of looted items were returned, often dumped on roadsides, by Sunday.

Collected here are photographs from the past week in quake-affected Chile.

Credit – Boston.com, Read more: Chile, nine days later