Again, I'm writing about portable chargers for handphones... Having a phone that uses up its internal battery fast is such an inspiration for finding new methods or products that help extend the life of its internal battery.
So far, I've always been plugging in my iphone into my portable charger only when the phone is about to be dead. That is probably how everyone uses their portable charger, no doubt. But the problem is, using a battery to charge another battery is just a waste of energy because of all the loses involved. Try touching your phone when its charging. It gets warm, doesn't it? This heat produced is due to all the inefficiencies in the circuits.
So, to get the most out of your portable charger, stop it from charging the phone battery if possible - make your phone run directly from the portable charger. If its not possible, especially when you use an iphone, there is a solution. However, this method needs planning and foresight. Instead of plugging in your portable charger when your phone is almost dead, plug it in when your phone has 100% charge. This way, the phone will not use the energy from the portable charger to charge the internal battery, but will simply run the phone off the portable charger.
I tried this and got bored since my portable charger didn't cut off after a long while of watching youtube videos, surfing 9gag and chatting. The only drawback was that it was awkward operating my phone with the portable charger stuck to it. This will work best if your portable charger is designed as a protective case. Something like this.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 09, 2012
A movie of 3 idiots
Watched a bollywood film named "3 idiots" while on a bus back to Singapore. I was initially put off by the title but after hearing a few friends speak highly of that movie, I had to watch it for myself. The movie revolves around a prestigious engineering college in India which is ran by a obnoxious principal who believed in very strict rote learning, scoffed at any form of creativity and had little empathy for failure. In short, he was the principal that everyone loved to hate. Then, in came a bright freshman who was at odds with such a mindless education system, displayed his rebellion towards the principal and his school while, at the same time, being the top student. This student then, in the course of chasing the principal's daughter, ended up indirectly convincing the principal that education need not be so rigid and life need not be such a cold and harsh rat race.
What I wrote doesn't even come close to justifying how good the movie is and its critique of the Asian expectation of 望子成龙, 望女成凤 mentality and our tendency of minding how other think of others think of our own children if they chose an unconventional career path or if they simply didn't do well in school. In a way, children can be a huge source of pride or shame for parents. I can kind of relate to the film because my parents somewhat falls in the same category of people that the film portrayed. I really liked the scene where *spoiler alert* Farhan said to his dad when he told him that he wanted to be a wildlife photographer instead of an engineer, which was what his father had hoped for him since Farhan's birth. His dad, who was infuriated when Farhan confessed that he skipped a job interview to be an engineer, told Farhan that he was concerned about how his colleague (I presume) would think of Farhan if he knew that Farhan was going to be a photographer instead of a well paid engineer. Farhan, sobbingly replied that he didn't care of what his dad's colleague thought of him because he didn't raise him and he didn't sacrifice to provide him with the comfort that saw him through his college days, Farhan affirmed that it was his dad's feelings that he cared about and hoped that he would understand his choice. *spoiler end*
Well, go watch it. (:
What I wrote doesn't even come close to justifying how good the movie is and its critique of the Asian expectation of 望子成龙, 望女成凤 mentality and our tendency of minding how other think of others think of our own children if they chose an unconventional career path or if they simply didn't do well in school. In a way, children can be a huge source of pride or shame for parents. I can kind of relate to the film because my parents somewhat falls in the same category of people that the film portrayed. I really liked the scene where *spoiler alert* Farhan said to his dad when he told him that he wanted to be a wildlife photographer instead of an engineer, which was what his father had hoped for him since Farhan's birth. His dad, who was infuriated when Farhan confessed that he skipped a job interview to be an engineer, told Farhan that he was concerned about how his colleague (I presume) would think of Farhan if he knew that Farhan was going to be a photographer instead of a well paid engineer. Farhan, sobbingly replied that he didn't care of what his dad's colleague thought of him because he didn't raise him and he didn't sacrifice to provide him with the comfort that saw him through his college days, Farhan affirmed that it was his dad's feelings that he cared about and hoped that he would understand his choice. *spoiler end*
Well, go watch it. (:
Thursday, July 05, 2012
Finally, the Higgs Boson.
After such a long time and so much effort spent on searching for the elusive Higgs Boson, the good people of CERN has finally managed to isolate this hard to find particle. As a physics person, I am really glad that we are one step closer to knowing more about our universe. This is because, at this point of time, the most coherent way of explaining our world is though The Standard Model. This model is a collection of knowledge that had been acquired throughout many many years of scientific endeavor. Admittedly, there is still some things that are not accounted for but hey, its work in progress.
The standard model attempts to link all the known fundamental forces (electromagnetic, weak, strong) by reducing their interaction into an exchange of particles. Its been very successful except that it does not account for mass. Everyone knows the concept of mass and gravity. We feel it everyday but it is still very mysterious because we don't know what causes it? Issac Newton found out how gravity worked and was able to make predictions of how stellar objects move, Einstein improved it and explained that mass causes the bending of space-time, sucking everything towards itself. Peter Higgs, the guy who suggested the existence of the Higgs boson, found inconsistencies in the Standard Model that may be fixed by the addition of gauge bosons. In layman terms, why the hell doesn't light have mass? Why do massy particles even have mass in the first place? So, the Higgs Boson is the particle which is kind of responsible for mass in the theory of The Standard Model. If the Higgs Boson could not be found, then it means that what we think we know about anything with mass could be VERY WRONG. So, yay!
The Higgs boson, which is predicted to be "very massive" in terms of energy, meant that a lot of energy has to be used to create it, which is why CERN's particle accelerators span several countries. Their accelerators accelerate charged particles in opposite directions and make them slam into each other as they meet on the other side of the circular loop. slamming extremely energetic particles together will result in an explosion that creates new particles from the energy of the initial colliding particles. Most particles created are those that we already know. Some of these particles are extremely unstable while they are in isolated while some interact very weakly. These two issues pose a problem for detection and thus it is a pain in the ass to identify them.
The Higgs Boson goes a long way towards validating the our current knowledge of our world in terms of the Standard Model theory and gives us more room to expanding into the unknown. On this weighty subject, it is time to log off and prepare for my Vietnamese test!
The standard model attempts to link all the known fundamental forces (electromagnetic, weak, strong) by reducing their interaction into an exchange of particles. Its been very successful except that it does not account for mass. Everyone knows the concept of mass and gravity. We feel it everyday but it is still very mysterious because we don't know what causes it? Issac Newton found out how gravity worked and was able to make predictions of how stellar objects move, Einstein improved it and explained that mass causes the bending of space-time, sucking everything towards itself. Peter Higgs, the guy who suggested the existence of the Higgs boson, found inconsistencies in the Standard Model that may be fixed by the addition of gauge bosons. In layman terms, why the hell doesn't light have mass? Why do massy particles even have mass in the first place? So, the Higgs Boson is the particle which is kind of responsible for mass in the theory of The Standard Model. If the Higgs Boson could not be found, then it means that what we think we know about anything with mass could be VERY WRONG. So, yay!
The Higgs boson, which is predicted to be "very massive" in terms of energy, meant that a lot of energy has to be used to create it, which is why CERN's particle accelerators span several countries. Their accelerators accelerate charged particles in opposite directions and make them slam into each other as they meet on the other side of the circular loop. slamming extremely energetic particles together will result in an explosion that creates new particles from the energy of the initial colliding particles. Most particles created are those that we already know. Some of these particles are extremely unstable while they are in isolated while some interact very weakly. These two issues pose a problem for detection and thus it is a pain in the ass to identify them.
The Higgs Boson goes a long way towards validating the our current knowledge of our world in terms of the Standard Model theory and gives us more room to expanding into the unknown. On this weighty subject, it is time to log off and prepare for my Vietnamese test!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)