IwannaAyellowlittleduckie

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

hullo duck.

Butterfly effect
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For other uses of this term, see Butterfly effect (disambiguation).

Point attractors in 2D phase space

The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. The idea is that small variations in the initial conditions of a dynamical system produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. Sensitive dependence is also found in non-dynamical systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

The practical consequence of the butterfly effect is that complex systems such as the weather are difficult to predict past a certain time range - approximately a week, in the case of weather. This is because any finite model that attempts to simulate a system must necessarily truncate some information about the initial conditions—for example, when simulating the weather, one would not be able to include the wind coming from every butterfly's wings. In all practical cases, defects in the knowledge of the initial conditions and deficiencies in the model are equally important sources of error. In a chaotic system, these errors are magnified as the simulation progresses. Thus the predictions of the simulation are useless after a certain finite amount of time.

Edward Lorenz first analyzed the effect in a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences. According to the paper, "One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings could change the course of weather forever." Later speeches and papers by Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly, possibly inspired by the diagram generated by the Lorenz attractor, which looks like a butterfly; other theories propose that the phrase's basis is to be found in fiction (Ray Bradbury's 1952 story "A Sound of Thunder"), but there is no proof available that Lorenz was swayed by literary precedent. The idea is now often stated something to the effect of, “a butterfly flapping its wings in Tokyo could cause tornadoes in California.”

to emily soh ee ling and amy fairuza whatever ur whole name is.
haha. beat that. i told u such a phenomenon existed.

u know the three of us were at the 24-hour seremban highway Mac's once and i told them about this butterfly effect thing and they have since proclaimed me crazy and the product of a weird education system.

so this is for the both of u. next time when i talk about smth like this, dont give me that incredulous go-back-to-that-weird-country-of-yours look.

posted R @ 3:27 am

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Friday, January 27, 2006

hullo duck.

so i am back in singapore, Again. haha lots of pple have told me that it seems as though i never left. and then some other pple tell me that it seems as though i have dissappeared from the face of this earth.

anyways i am back from KKB. it is this hospital posting thingie.

well in the beginning it wasnt all that fun cos i was with a bunch of pple i hardly knew. but then alvin lai and michelle were there so things got better. and then kuan eng and mahes came in the other group and things got pretty hunky-dory. anyways i have never been so sleep deprived in my life. and as pathetic as this sounds, i grab any oppotunity i get to sleep. i just zonk out on the clinic chair and i really dont care how syupid i look when i sleep. i usually dont sleep in front of pple. cos i get paranoid about how i look and the drool and stuff.

anyways, the highlights of my trip were

1. an autopsy.
a 6-day old decomposing body of some woman was found. there were like maggots every single inch of her body. it was big news in KKB cos it came out in the papers and all. and looking at the dead body is really no big deal. i mean i was told that the smell is so bad u can faint and that looking at the body can give u nightmares.

over-rated. a dead body is seriously the coolest thing.

2. a delivery
well i kinda felt bad for the lady cos she had like 12 medical students staring at her when she was in pain. there was ALOT of blood.
anywys there is this procedure where u stick ur finger into the lady's vagina to feel if her cervix is dilated.
those nurses took that procedure to the extreme and practically EXCAVATED the poor lady down there. u know they were so rough in feeling for the cervix that u wonder if these nurses have got one of their own.

3. being stuck with alvin lum wai keng all the time.
for those of u who are unaware, he is this person i have an issue with. and of all people to be stuck with i got stuck with him. i really felt sorry for myself. but more so, i felt sorry for all the pple around me. they had to endure complaint after complaint about that boy. well i dont apologise.

4. a rotting foot
some poor old man with diabetes.
sheesh growing old sucks.

5. i tried wild boar meat.
good stuff. for those of u reading this and are bound for KKB soon, go to restoren 98. it is the only decent place there. oh and there is this alcohol shop opposite 7-11. but i wouldn't recommend it unless u are really bored. its bad quality stuff.

well that's pretty much it.
i am glad i went with pple who are not my usual friends. its somewat refreshing getting to know pple (and enjoying their company) whom u never knew even existed.

anyways did i mention i am back in sin? yep and will be alone for the next 10 days since my parents are out of sin. its funny how alot of pple have suggested throwing a wild party. well i have the empty house and all the ATM cards (=all mom's $$).

but.
1. i am too exhausted from the hospital postings to think about anything but sleep.
2.its just too much work. my place has got lots of fragile stuff too.
3.most of my friends are chinese. (oh wait, ALL of them are chinese) and this is just the wrong time to have anything given the cny time.
4. i dont really know how to organise a party. haha. ne really i dont.
5.i have lost contact with most of my friends. oh did i mention i keep in touch with a grand total of 5 pple in singapore. and its more of them calling me than me calling them. they're totally different so i cant imagine them hanging out together at my place.

so the party idea is out. yea i am boring. wat to do?

posted R @ 2:46 am

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