How Can You Succeed?

A guy called Malcom Galdwell has a new theory based on facts - all successful people in their own field has one common factor; they spent at least 10,000 hours practising their area of expertise before they became the best in the world. 10,000 hours work out to a minimum of 3 hours a day, or 20 hours a week. He has written a book on it.

If he is right, then there is no short-cut to success beside hard work. That applies to your studies too. Now you can tell if you will do well in your studies using this measurement. If you spend a few hours playing games on the PC or PSP, then you will be a very good gamer later in life.

Read more here.

What Was Used Before The Slide Rule?

I used the Slide Rule only in SP. In Secondary Schools, we used what was known as the Logarithm Table. It was a thin book, with a lot of numbers, across rows and columns. You need to located the number you want, say 4 if you want the answer for log 4 (base 10). On that row, you will get the answer. Look at the image below that shows part of a log table for log base 10, and the answer for log 4 is 0.6020600 (top right corner).

The same method was used in the log table for tangent, cosine, sine, etc. I am not sure if a copy can be found in our museum.

What Was Used Before the Calculator Came?

Have you ever wondered how engineers did their calculations before the calculator was invented and then used worldwide? It was a device known as the Slide Rule. I used it when I was in SP in the year 1975-1976. Calculators were already available, but were only allowed for use in mid-1976 onwards. The most popular brand at that time, and for many years after that, was Casio.

The Slide Rule looks like this:

It basically has a body, one ruler that you can slide, and a transparent plastic piece (with a fine line on it acting as a cursor). To use, you hold the outer frame or body, slide the ruler, then use the cursor for reading. The basic functions include multiplication, division, logarithm, roots, and trigonometry.

There are a few rows of numbers for different functions. You need to learn how to choose the correct rows. A closer look at the cursor:

If the cursor shows the answer in between two markings, then the user will have to estimate the value indicated. Search the Internet if you wish to know more. So now you know how lucky students are today with the convenience of calculators and computers?

Top Students

I will post the names of the top students once the results are out. Will Ramadan be one of them? Or Anisa? Who else do you think will be among the top?

Make sure you come back ...

A Note to 2W and 2V graduating students

Hi,
All the best to your exam this week. Hope all of you can make it after 2 stressful years.

Some of you will make it to one of the Polys after that, some will come back to Dover Campus for your Higher Nitec in Security Tech which will start in April 2009. I hope all of you have matured and can plan for your future from now on. It is better to study and get good grades as your future will be brighter, than to work too much part-time (and waste the money on unnecessary items) and miss your classes. You will be able to afford more items when you begin working as an adult later in life.

Anyway, keep in touch wherever you go.

Allan Tan

Security Technology 2008 2W (First Batch) - more photos

Security Technology - 2008 1K (Second Batch)

Nitec Security Technology 2008-1J (Second Batch)

Security Technology - 2008-2V (First Batch)