Let’s reduce our carbon footprint together

Luckily, Dad came back with me but unluckily for him to be part of the labour. Cause’ he had to do this

Dad and I painstakingly scraped off the newspaper. Rubbing off with thinner doesn’t seemed to work. Water does make the removal easier though. After that, we applied two layers of wood protection just like previously. When it’s dry, assembly is commenced!

We used two types of ‘L’ Bracket – plastic and steel. We wanted to use all steel but out of stock so we bought plastic ones and they are cheaper anyway. We used plastic ones for the simple tables.

Applied carpentry glue between two pieces so that they hold more strongly..

After many many screwing (no pun intended), we’re done! 2 simple tables, 1 weirder looking table and 1 shelf.

and

Piles of newspapers to throw and clean up.

The total cost of the project is RM 156.50, and approximately 65 man-hours. Worth it? Yea to some extend it was satisfying but the process wasn’t exactly that enjoyable. We had bruised palm and backache due to much bending. urgh! But it was certainly a rich learning experience. Below are some of the things I would improve on / reduce the next time around (if any):

• Reduce wood protection coating. Perhaps only use them for the sides. That would dive the cost down by 40%, using only one tin and lower the man-hours by 50%. Using less chemical is also more environmental friendly.
• Would love to try paint instead. Black or white would be my top choice.
• Install then only paint the side to avoid newspaper sticking on the wood. This would reduce the man-hours by another 20%.
• An electric driller would certainly speed up things and reduce physical pain.
• Minimize throwing of newspaper and recycle them instead. Almost all are torn while separating them from wood.

Without a good assistant like Dad, this project will not be completed so wonderfully. Thanks!

]]> http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2010/02/27/diy-woodwork-part-ii/feed/ 3 http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2010/02/11/diy-woodwork-part-i/ http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2010/02/11/diy-woodwork-part-i/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:10:46 +0000 teik http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/?p=239 More >]]> In support of green architecture, I have decided to make my own furniture by re-using pieces of wood that I managed to salvage. Apparently some people left it lying by the stairs and seeing that no one came to claim them, I loaded as many pieces as I can into my poor little car in the middle of the night when no one was watching and transported back to my apartment. The pieces, weigh more than 5kg a piece, are still in very good condition. There are still more  pieces of variety sizes and shapes by the stairs but that’s all I could carry though I have the desire to go back for more. Perhaps some other day. Each of the wood measure 1 inch thick but of different length and width. So this is what I did to them thus far:

1. Wiped them clean and stacked according to size
2. Took measurement with IKEA measuring tape
3. The GOAL: use up all the pieces and make as many furniture as possible. The designing work is actually the hardest process. It had me thinking for quite a while. Below are my engineering-ish drawing sketches:-
4. The preview of the end result. There will be three tables and one shelf. Each shape is tagged with alphabet corresponding to size. This is for easy identification and to avoid using the wrong piece during assembly.
5. Recently my wooden computer table was covered with mold – same type of wood, only thinner. So I’ve decided to apply wood protection to avoid having the same problem. Went to Ace Hardware to look around and here’s what I came back with:- 
6. Painting. This is when the actual labour begins. Each surface was coated twice. I had twenty two pieces and the recommended drying time before re-applying is 12 hours. But I waited only about 7 hours because I was impatient. I worked from morning till midnight.
7. The second coating made the wood even darker. The surfaces are now not so smooth as I thought they would be.

One litre of wood protection wasn’t enough so I went and bought another two more tins. If I had another chance to do another woodwork I would want to try coloured paint. Now I left the reverse side to coat but I face a problem. The newspapers are now glued to the wood. Anyway I’ll figure out how to solve it after the Chinese New Year break. I can’t wait to get them done. It’s my woodwork since ‘kemahiran hidup’ back in the secondary school days. As for now HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!!!

ARE YOU A KILLER?

HELP CONTROL GLOBAL WARMING

 NOW for the FUTURE

Empire Tower sex changed me

Of late, my PC was in haywire, ranging for unable to boot properly to automatically restarting. Dr. Lim got me a 2nd-hand motherboard, stripped my CPU naked, dug out the wires, and finally screwed the new one in it. But unfortunately my little fussy baby rejected the new system causing inaccessibility to Windows XP, and that got me into a deep depression till I can’t even sing along David Cook’s “Always Be My Baby” anymore. I realized I can’t live without computer! Seriously man… I can die.

On the other hand, Dr. Lim who have had myriad of hands-on experience, was cool all the time. He was happily ironing clothes when he told me to get my hard disk connected to his PC instead to backup all my important files before formatting the whole junk. Formatting was something I was trying to avoid but somehow it was inevitable and I was desperate. The longer I am without my computer, the longer I suffer from anxiety. But unfortunately again, I had too many things to backup, C&P somehow gave me problem, and the whole world seemed to be against the brain transplant on my baby PC.

Dr. Lim proceeded to stripped my CPU even more naked. He ran the system using my old motherboard, and hard disk without the casing. See the picture, you’ll get the idea. I thought that was musing as I’ve not seen such an operation – call me naive but what the heck. Still it seemed pretty cool to me and scary at the same time working next to a charged unit! Anyhow, I finished up the power plant brochure for my lead engineer, backed up my files, and kiss my software infested C: drive goodbye!

My PC operating like this!

Baby PC under went a second brain transplant operation. This time, wiped out the cancer in totality by formatting the C: drive. IT WORK!!! Yea hoo.. Although it was empty when it got online, but I can finally sing “Always Be My Baby” once more. Welcome back baby PC. Now I’ll slowly fill you up with  software nutrients so that you can be fully functional and steady once again.

Many thanks to Dr. K.L Lim. I hope you okay with me repaying the operation cost by paying for your pizza.

PC is in the pink again!

I’ll tell about the pizza when the time is right..kekeke..

]]> http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2008/06/12/stripped-naked/feed/ 0 http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2008/06/02/safety-big-frog-jumping-around-the-street/ http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2008/06/02/safety-big-frog-jumping-around-the-street/#comments Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:05:00 +0000 teik http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/?p=29 More >]]> If a stranger offer you 20% of USD 8 million would you be interested? That translates to a freaking USD 1.6 million! Want or not? Want or not?

Of course I want la… Never a sane person would pass a USD 1.6 million cheque. That would akin to passing out a chance to go to the outer space just for the heck of leaving a mark “Teik Was Here” on a piece of Mars rock. If I hadn’t been reading about scams infesting the world wide web, I would have replied to this generous Mr. Hassan bin Millionaire the moment I read the email he sent to me. I don’t know how he came to know about my existence. Ha! Speaking of the danger of revealing too much information on the WWW! This is what bin Millionaire wrote to me:

From: Mr Hassan Malik Khalid.
As you read this, don’t feel sorry for me (why would I ?), because it is the destiny of everyman to die someday (oh..man of wisdom konon…). I am Mr,Hassan Malik Khalid (bin millionaire) a naturalised Briton by birth and a business merchant based in the United Kingdom (like I care… you sounded like Osama’s friend). I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer (oooohh…too bad…).
It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few months to live (…and you choose to email me? Though I know it’s going to end soon, but still, get a life!), according to medical experts. I regret that I have not particularly lived my life so well (I think it’s time you get started now), as I never really cared for anyone (not even myself) (no wonder you get cancer), but my trade (what trade? scamming people? no wonder you get cancer always talk talk talk & scam scam scam). Though I am very well to do, I was never open handed (no wonder you get cancer); I was always hostile to people (no wonder you get cancer) and regarded them like they never had hopes of becoming as successful as myself (no wonder you get cancer). Now I know that there is a lot more to life than just prosperity (yea your last wish is to try to scam me….a true fighter till the end…respect).
I believe that when I am given a second chance to come to this world (talk cock la you), I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it (yea..most definitely..now you’ll be sitting in your death bed facing your laptop & sending this email to tons of people since you can’t scam people verbally anymore…wah..clever). Now that death is eminent, I have willed and given most of my belonging to immediate and extended family members, as well as a few close friends ( give what? Your countless of scam drafts and fake documents so that they can continue your legacy ?). I want Allah to be merciful to me and accept my soul. Hence I have decided to support charity work (aaa..and you have to tell your grandmother stories first before you to come to this?); this is what i want to be remembered for (sorry la, too late). So far, I have been able to reach out to a few charity organizations in the Singapore, Algeria and Malaysia (Briton & UK don’t have izzit?). Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore (I knew it! you want someone else to do your bidding!).
I once asked members of my family to aid me in giving of alms to those organizations catering for the less privileged in Bulgaria and Pakistan; they refused and kept the resources to themselves (yea I guess that kind of blood runs in the family). Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contempt with what I have left for them (like you ma…). The last of my belonging which no one knows of, is the huge deposit of Eight Million US dollars ($8,000,000,00) that I have in a safe keeping company abroad (oh…so you choose to tell me…don’t worry bin millionaire, I’ll keep your secret!), which I will want you to secure and bestow to charity organizations (no problem.. just bank your money to teik teik foundation for my life-spending, TQ) . Please endaevour to reply me via email: mrhassankhalidmalik@yahoo.co.uk For your time and devotion, I have set aside 20% of this for you (want to give means give everything la….why only 20%…stingy bastard!).

God be with you.
Mr Hassan Malik Khalid bin Millionaire

Friends, if you think this guy might be for real, then he has succeeded 50%. That’s all it takes. Please go to this link –> bin Millionaire scam for proof. This guy is one of the latest additions into the hall of fame of bastards!

]]> http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2008/06/02/safety-big-frog-jumping-around-the-street/feed/ 0 http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2008/05/17/originality/ http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/2008/05/17/originality/#comments Sat, 17 May 2008 05:02:12 +0000 teik http://alexlee.youthchapter.com/?p=19 More >]]> Ladies and gentlemen, my recent attempt on the gay articles has led me to the discovery of copyscape. I don’t know whether you are aware of this but this website allows you to check whether an article/post in the Internet (eg: an article in your blog) is original or otherwise. What you do is you can upload an article on your blog, go to the copyscape website, enter the url and simply hit enter. The website will cross check your article against the WWW and it will list out all the direct copy and paste work (if any). I’m aware that most personal blogs consist of one’s thoughts and opinions hence originality is not the concern. But the main idea is to be original.

Plagiarism is a serious and growing problem not only in the Internet but also in everyday life. This applies particularly to students – copying someone else’s work, do some minor changes and claim as their original work. Now in support of originality, I would like to urge those of you who read this to cultivate the ‘be original’ habit – be it in your articles, projects, reports, thoughts, thinking, ideologies, behaviours, principles, the way you dress, and etc. This website is created not only to address the issue of dwindling number of original web contents, but also helps you to protect your original work and understanding your right. Go on and visit www.copyscape.com to find out more.

You’ll never know that our lecturers are using this to cross check our reports. As many books now are digitalized, copyscape is casting a wider net to catch plagiarism. So this is serious guys. Please take note. If you are doing your thesis (especially in pursuing your Masters or PHD) make sure you be original and do proper referencing or you could very well kiss your scroll goodbye!

Well, no one is a goodie-two-shoes, including myself. Sometimes we do C&P job intentionally or unintentionally. Therefore let’s be more alert and strive to be original. For one it will keep your brain from rotting that is.

The next time you see this in a website, you better not be copying

About biofuel; well, I’ve not really done any research on biofuel until someone asked me to comment about it recently. I just have a very rough idea about it, but anyway I will summarize my findings that I’ve just done and my express views for the future.

So biofuel, like everyone knows is fuel derived from living things – animals or plants, mainly plants though. I think the hot topic now is to use plants especially grains like corns and sugar cane to produce fuel as petroleum reserves are depleting. The two popular biofuels are biodiesel and bioalcohol (as opposed to others such as biomass, biogas, and solid biofuel).

In biodiesel, vegetable oils and animal fats are turned into the type of fuel (by means of chemical reaction) that can be burned by most of todays combustion engines. Most use vegetable oils like corn oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed, algae, palm oil, coconut oil, peanut, and soy. Vegetable oils or animal fats contains triglycerides (fatty acids) – is like 3 long chains of C and H with some O elements bonded by a glycerine (heavy alcohol). In short this is a complex molecule (long chain) and cannot be combusted. A process called alcoholysis or better known as transesterification converts the fatty acids into alkyl esters (biodiesel) by means of a catalyst (strong alkali) and an alcohol reagent (usually methanol). In the end from a bulk of 3 chains group together, you now get 3 separate shorter chain that can be combusted. You can actually produce your own biodiesel at home using cooking oil. It’s not a very complicated process. The process involves some pouring, stirring, heating and filtering. So after filtering you can pretty much use biodiesel for your car, cooking and stuff like that. Most biodiesel however is not 100% biodiesel – they are actually mixed with petrodiesel (petroleum base) in some proportion ranging from 0% to 100% depending on the suitability of your engine. The purpose is to lower down the viscosity (thickness or ease of flow) of vegetable oil (and yes petrodiesel if more fluid). There are a lot of advantage and disadvantage of biodiesel (you can google them yourself) but the main point is that it’s renewable. Actually vegetable oil can be fuel without having to undergo transesterification but your combustion system needs to be modified. Again pros and cons are there.

In bioalcohol the idea is the same – use alcohol as fuel; just that this time the process is called fermentation which can be achieved by anaerobic process, or use microorganism, etc. The first four aliphatic alcohols (methanol, ethanol, propanol and butanol) – hope you still remember your Form 5 chemistry, are of interest because they can be synthesized biologically and have characteristics which allow them to be used in current engines. Natural sugars in plant (i.e: glucose, fructose, sucrose) are converted into alcohol (usually ethanol) through this process. Actually you drink this type of ethanol aka fuel. It’s safe provided it is derived from plants, not petroleum. BUT DON’T take my word for it, stick to H2O please – while you can. There are lots of advantages in using bioalcohol as fuel. Again you can read the pros and cons yourself if you are interested. Also bioalcohol is usually mixed with conventional petrol/gasoline in some proportion to achieve the desired result.

With the increase in oil price due to petroleum getting lesser and lesser (I guess this is the case where what goes down must come up), biofuel is no doubt the way forward. Brazil, US, France, Sweden and Germany are the world leaders in biofuel development and use. China is making biofuel blend mandatory to be used in the nation’s car. Similar trend coming in India. Thailand had mandated 10% ethanol mix in gasoline. Europe has set goal to achieve 5.75% biofuel usage by 2010 and 10% by 2020. France and German is increasing biofuel consumption. Sweden started to work to end oil dependency and aim oil phase-out by 2020. They are also introducing Swedish made hybrid car and buses. US wants to replace 75% imported oil by 2025 with alternative fuel.

Now with such bold aims and goals by world powerhouse, biofuel is BIG business! Crop plantations enjoy the attentions now. For one, oil palm industry is enjoying the rise in the market price. So do maize, corn, soy, coconut, sugarcane, jatropha, rice and many other plantations. Next time around I won’t be surprise to see lesser coconuts on the road in the next Thaipusam.

Bad Biofuel

However, in my opinion I don’t think biofuel is going to be very much renewable and it’s going to bring a lot of other implications.

1. Food vs fuel. Yea that’s number ONE. Food price increase dramatically. In fact we are feeling the pinch right now. More famine, more poverty, more people without money and food =(
2. Land. Well some may think it’s good to have more plants around but think about deforestation. These are not the plants as in lush green trees in the Amazon. Biofuel contains less energy than petroleum based fuel for a comparative amount. So they need a lot of source plants to extract small amount of oil.
3. Global warming. On the contrary, some research found that burning biofuel is not cleaner but still contribute to global warming. The effect of deforestation adds to it. BTW, I want to recommend you all to watch the ‘Inconvenient Truth’ (wana see how polar bear can drown?).
4. How sustainable or renewable it can be? The chemicals we used to produce them are still petroleum by-products. We blend it with petrodiesel and gasoline. We use fertilizers (petroleum by-product) for agriculture. Harvesting, processing (i.e: heating), marketing, transportation all needs energy and all that points back to petroleum. In the end the net of what we are getting out of biofuel is very little.

Biofuel might be able to reduce petroleum consumption for now, but I don’t think it is the ultimate solution.

Hell Future

Here’s what I imagine the future will be like:

1. Oil price gets rediculously high. Mind you oil is not only for transportation but for so many other things. From buildings to tiny little end products like toys. So people will fight for petroleum until the last drop.
2. Alternative energy source rise dramatically. Biofuel included. We will see wide plantations. We might even live on trees. High rise buildings with plants as tenants. Wind rotors in every windy place. Solar panels in buildings. We will live in the mercy of utilities providers.
3. When the oil is depleted (maybe for another 100 years or get so expensive people can’t afford it) the world stops developing/progressing. It’s unimaginably hard to live without petroleum. So many products cannot be produced when it’s gone – for instance plastic products which we are all so dependable on, medical equipments and medicine itself. I’m afraid we might even plunge back to the dark age. Many people will be out of jobs. Although those in oil & gas business are enjoying the high price now, it won’t last long. Water will be scarce. Getting hydrogen from water is another possibility to turn it into another major source of alternative energy (though no major technology breakthrough now – I’m sure we will when we are desperate). Transportation’s a big problem. I don’t even know whether we will have aeroplanes flying anymore then.
4. Looking for another habitable place in another planet. Mars is the place. One way or another, it is made habitable – I’m sure US can somehow find a way. They started digging for minerals and look for possible petroleum source. World war III (or maybe IV, or V) starts.
5. Life is so hard that people wish to die. When you die your body will be taken as an energy source. Extract whatever minerals we have in our body. Burn our body (since we are carbon-based). No more graveyards – lands are too precious. Perhaps even dying is prohibited then. You’ll be kept alive just to extract energy from you. Your heat and your heart beat is somehow turned into a source of energy (like in the movie Matrix). It’s a nigthmare till you wish an alien would come and abduct you and take you away.

Okla enough. It’s a hell future I’m painting. I apologies but I’m only half joking though. Can someone please show me the light at the end of the tunnel. Too bad/lucky we won’t be here anymore to witness when the near future arrives. Anyway as for now, anyone inspired to start a plantation business?

Thanks for reading.