Science for Seven-Year-Olds

I recently heard a boy asking the following question.

"Do you know what gravity is?"

The older girl he was asking answered no, and he went into a long rant of explanation, describing the invisible force causing everything to drop clunking onto the floors.

It is no wonder science so frequently fails to appeal to youngsters nowadays, as compared to games and TV shows and iPhones.

Learning Science in primary school is good. School children get to observe the surroundings more and learn to appreciate all the things that make the world go round (for all the 'lil uns, that's the Earth's rotation). Learning Science and Mathematics in English is even better. You don't understand the pain of having to memorise the periodic table in Chinese and Malay before converting to English.

However, I personally don't see the point of feeding an 8-year-old with the knowledge of phantom forces. I mean, what's the use of such knowledge to them? So that they can blame gravity when they drop something (just like one of my friends)? Or stop pretending to act like Superman (or Batman, whatever) jumping off the desks?

In my opinion, they should be taught more realistic stuff that prove useful to them, and, at the same time, interesting enough to keep them glued to the encyclopaedias for the rest of their lives. Nutritions, for example, is surely useful, seeing the fact that most children are picky (including my own sister) when it comes to food. Or maybe the fact that the universe is such a gigantic place will stop them from bickering over small matters.

That's sort of ironic, actually. I was a curious boy (who wasn't?) and knew quite a lot about science from all the children's encyclopaedias featuring Mickey Mouse and Goofy. I've heard of numerous theories for the extinction of dinosaurs, how spiders cling on to the walls, how planes stay up, and also knew that it is possible to fry an egg on a rock under the midday sun. Now, how useful were those knowledge to me? Even the present day me can't make good use of those things. I mean, unless prices of gas skyrocket to, say, $150 per barrel drop, I won't be frying eggs under the hot sun for quite some time.

Anyway, it seems like children are getting smarter nowadays. It's no wonder the primary schools have problem recruiting teachers recently.

Home?

I didn't quite quite realised this, and I was very surprised it took me two whole years for me to notice it.

The thing is, I think, for the rest of my life, I will not spend much time at home anymore.

I mean, since I joined college, I spend 6 days a week at school.

And of the one day I stay at what I called "home", I spend over 8 hours sleeping, few hours learning Chinese calligraphy, some time for my meals, a bit more for my weekly laundry, packing...

And oh! It's time to go to school.

See what I mean?

Well, after graduation, I don't expect myself to spend a whole year rotting at "home". Maybe I'll take a month's holiday, then I'll probably pack my stuff and leave for good. I mean, as an Electrical or Electronic Engineer, I don't expect to get the jobs I want in Klang. AMD has labs in Singapore and factories in Penang, that may be a good deal for me. Or maybe I can pursue my passion for railway transits, again, not in Klang.

Anyway, you get my point. I think that's growing up. Sooner or later we'll leave home for good. It's good I get to start small, leave home for few days for a week. I've heard of some people crying their eyeballs out of their sockets after being sent to a university in Mars East Malaysia.

For those who are not used to the sudden change, suit yourselves - change is in the must-list of growing up.

Are you sure you shouldn't stop calling that place "home"?

How's Firefox 3 Coming Along?

It's been quite some time since Mozilla Firefox 3 came out.

So what do you think of the new browser? Discovered any new features yet?

Well, the first thing I've noticed is that the installer has shrunk in size. A mere 8MB for an amazing browser! That's an amazing feat. This probably means it will take up less computer resources too.

But who cares about backend changes? Nobody gives a damn about what they don't see. What they care are the things that matter.

So far I've only uncovered few important changes.

1. The address bar

Firefox's address bar gets smart! Instead of typing the URL of a website, a user can enter a keyword from the URL or the title of the website, and a list of sites will appear, with the related keywords are bolded and underlined.The sites include bookmarks and history. Bookmarks are denoted with cute yellow stars to their right. This is real handy, as it is easier to remember the title of a website rather than its URL.

Search as you type, smart address bar!

You can now delete entries from the address bar's dropdown list too. To delete an entry, mouse over the entry. The entry will be highlighted. Then, press the delete button on your keyboard. Now you see it, now you don't!

2. Better drag and drop

OK, you're browsing Wikipedia. Or Owl Order, whichever you prefer. You stumble across an adorable picture. How often does that happen when you browse Owl Order? Well, anyway, what do you do next? You right click on it, and then choose "Save Image As...", choose your destination directory, click "Save", watch the download manager finish the download, go to the destination to make sure it's there, clean up the download manager, and close the download manager.

Wait. That's the past. Now, it's different.

Now, all you have to do is just to click and hold on to the picture, and drag it into a certain location, be it a folder somewhere in your computer, desktop, or even your messenger to send it directly to your friend.

Dragging an image to the desktop. A translucent copy of the image will follow your cursor. Pardon me, the cursor wasn't captured in the screenshot.

And voila! The image will be sent instantly to the location. Try it and believe it!

Any other new tricks? Please share them with me. Thanks in advance!